…to GIBO PERLOTTO

from Mario Rigoni Stern

In his father’s workshop he learned the art of ironwork that together with the working of terracotta, is one of the most ancient crafts. In his memory though, he still preserves the images and the use of objects that are centuries old, but which today’s technology has substituted with others that are much more practical and effective but which do not have the imprint of a man’s hand. Only the spirit of a poet could think: let’s stop them in time and in memory with the iron cast in the white and wrought on the anvil; let’s transmit their memory on forever for what they have been in the life of many people and for what they have been able to suggest to us. So here is the chair of worn straw, the Venetian cloak (tabàro), the bed warmer (monèga), the yoke (bigòlo), the guitar with broken strings and the unglued soundboard, the bread knife (tajàpan)… Today they are forever fixed in the solidity of metal even for those who have a weak memory, or for those that have never seen them in use: these objects are here to speak to us of poorer times, but richer perhaps with other things that we have lost.