Sotto le stelle

Piotr Hanzelewicz makes us think that the coin is one of the last remaining symbols. From this the coin gets a dimension of duplicity, which always enchants for its bivalent nature. In fact, if the coin has an ideal dimension connected to the possibility of making and possessing, on the other hand it has a materiality and presents formal solutions that cannot be neglected. Piotr Hanzelewicz therefore intervenes by exploring the physical characteristics of these objects. In this way oxidations are born, which present us with coins that are tired of their representation, and therefore resign themselves to a cancellation.

The formal values are also investigated by Piotr Hanzelewicz, so because of the functional automatism that guides our daily contact with money, we normally neglect his effigy. Thus we forget that money is populated with figures, architecture, numbers and symbols. Piotr Hanzelewicz forces us to reflect on what we do not see, even though it is constantly in our hands. In this way we discover that behind the implacable monument to the value erected by money, there are signs whose irrationality and improbability is evident.

In the same way the prodigious symbolic values of the coin are not forgotten. In fact, although the identity between currency and power is not so direct, it is accepted, on the contrary, with spontaneity and naturalness by all societies. The coin is therefore recognized as an emblem of a desire that finds immediate realization with its possession.

In this exhibition Piotr Hanzelewicz comes to conclusions about humanism rather than economics. Just as man must work to give identity to his ideal, money must also undergo a sublimation to be able to represent our dreams. An apparently simple operation such as the possession and use of money thus provokes a series of mental passages, linked to matter, possession and symbol, the scope of which normally escapes us. This exhibition invites us to rediscover them.