A red thread links sky and earth: the “Red Nerve”, site-specific sculpture n. 16 at Castello di Ama

A red thread in the cellar, a “red nerve” that “creates an image of the contingency and vulnerability of the human condition”: it is “Red Nerve”, a site-specific sculpture by the Polish artist Mirosław Bałka, which is the permanent work n. 16 which is located in Castello di Ama, one of the most prestigious wineries in Chianti Classico and a pioneer in the relationship between wine and art, which thus enriches its famous collection, made up of works by contemporary artists of the highest international level, called to Ama, year after year, since 1999, by the owners Lorenza Sebasti and Marco Pallanti. At Ama Castle, Bałka suspended a single red thread in an old cellar, from the ceiling to the floor, “a simple but radical gesture that has profound philosophical implications. A rotation mechanism - explains the winery - causes the wire to contract and shake, investing it with a living presence and sensitizing the space around it. As the title suggests, red nerve, the thread is a metaphor for the human body, like a vein or an umbilical cord that supports a fragile and tenuous existence in the surrounding darkness. There is also a spiritual dimension: the thread that runs through the entire height of the cellar connects metaphorically earth and sky, the visible realm of concrete things and the invisible realm of the spirit”.
A work by the Polish artist, whose art “transversally addresses the nightmare of 20th century Polish history, from the Nazi invasion and occupation to the post-war Soviet regime”, often made with “humble and non-academic materials - soap, ash, salt, wax and so on - that resonate with a historical and spiritual significance”, which joins those signed, over the years, artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Daniel Buren, Giulio Paolini, Kendell Geers, Anish Kapoor, Chen Zhen, Carlos Garaicoa, Nedko Solakov, Cristina Iglesias, Louise Bourgeois, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lee Ufan and Roni Horn. Tomorrow, Saturday, October 12, in Gaiole in Chianti, the vernissage of the new work, which will enrich one of the most important collections of contemporary art, among the vineyards of Chianti Classico.