Letizia Romanini’s ambition was never to trace the border for the purposes of showing a rupture; quite the opposite. She avoids main roads, preferring backroads, constantly questioning whether she is on one side of the borderor the other. She scours the area, limiting her harvest to what she can hold in her hands, rejecting a spectacular rite of initiation in favor of focusing on the beauty of the ordinary—objects that resemble other objects: pebbles, feathers, pieces of wire, mushrooms… almost weightless, transform into precious bronze castings, light in the hand, fitting snugly in the palm.
The comparison lies not in scale but in perspective; it lies in the ability to confront geography directly through our bodies (and dare I say, our feet), to observe the ground as a potential source of wonders. This points to an understanding —an understanding that requires painful clarity—of contemporary changes, demanding that we learn to truly see, up close rather than from a distance, and in a slower, less exhilarated manner. The time of exoticism
has no doubt run its course.
— Camille Paulhan
Excerpts from the text The End of Exoticism,
Published in the book 356, the artist’s monograph.
Bronze, aluminum, slag, brass base,
variable dimensions, diameter 172 cm
Nei Liicht Art Center, exhibition 5 km/h, 2023
© MIKE ZENARI