Body of Work about Tuscany's Carrara marble quarries.
STONES OF CARRARA
Once, when I was in New York, on a cold and rainy day, I went to the Morgan’s Library in pursuit of some rare paintings from Renaissance and a Gutenberg’s Bible. There, I saw a letter hanging on a panel under a soft light. This letter, kept in perfect condition, was written on a single sheet of paper with a sharp and beautiful calligraphy. Ludovico, Michelangelo’s father, had written to his famous son a letter in the Autumn of 1516. He was warmly dissuading Michelangelo from visiting him, assuring Michelangelo that he was in good health and asking him to keep focused on his search for the perfect marble to complete Julius II’s Tomb in Florence. Actually, Michelangelo’s father was at the point of death. Despite being fully aware that he would never see his son again, Ludovico insisted that Michelangelo stay in Carrara, where the marble quarries are, to finish his work. Michelangelo heeded his father’s request. This letter spoke straight to my heart. Carrara, a small City in Tuscany that dates back to the Roman Age, is renown for it’s white marble. As one drives along the highway, one might think the tops of the surrounding mountains are snow-covered, but they are in fact topped with marble. The purpose of my trip to Carrara wasn’t solely to find a link with Michelangelo’s work, which is mostly located in Florence and Rome, but to catch something in the air, something out of time that makes me feel concern for the reality of this specific place. Generations of quarry workers have been slowly creating the story of this place since Michelangelo. White and blue-gray marble. This is what this city lives for and off. The contrast between this hard land, surrounded by ominous mountains, and the perfect milky skin of the rocks is what attracted me. I’ve been told that some artists are still working with Carrara’s marble, but I must admit that the only "sculptor" I saw this time was a computer controlled laser-head machine which cut stone like butter in an attempt to get academic and standardized shapes. I’ve been up into the mountains to Colonnata, to where the blocks of marble are extracted and loaded. I’ve heard the sounds of trucks and caterpillars at work through a foggy and silent day. I’ve seen the inky sky pourring down upon the quarries, creating dozens overtones of grey polished oxidized rocks under the light, as if the whole landscape had turned to marble. One thing brought me back to my first thoughts of New York : it had been a chilly and rainy day in Carrara…