Art and manual skill: a hand from the most modern power tools - By: Michele De Capitani

With conceptual art, arte povera (poor art) and minimalism, artists ceased to be homo faber, artisans with exceptional manual skills, and ceased also to dirty their hands, immerging, scratching and ruining them with the matter and colors. However, this does not mean that it is not possible to invert the trend, on the contrary: there are some signs showing us that artists are coming back to manual skill, to the artisanal production of their own works, to the old workshops, where the main artists of the Renaissance and of other epochs used to work surrounded by their tools, collaborators and apprentices, who wanted to learn the technique of the master. A return to tools and to manual work, in the era we live in, does not mean to restart using chisel and brush, it also means to be able to use in the best way the newest tools, which are born of the latest technological innovations, and which may not have been especially conceived to create works of art, but which can still enter this world, serving the creativity of the new artists or artists-to-be.

The worlds of art and technology have already found some common grounds, as highlighted, for example, by the exhibition “La nuova manualità nell’era digitale” (The new manual skill in the digital age), which took place in the deconsecrated church of San Carpoforo in Milan in 2009. An event that was born of the collaboration of two of the main exponents of these two worlds, which only seemingly move on parallel tracks: the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and Bosch Power Tools, which provided the Academy with many tools. With the coordination of Gaetano Grillo, an artist and teacher of the Academy, 25 young artists had the chance to display their works, which had been created with Bosch, Skil and Dremel power tools, with the intention of demonstrating that it is possible to come back to manual work using also the newest technological tools. The young artists that presented their works had used instruments like sanders, drills and spray guns, using only lithium-ion technology tools, to combine the creative purpose and the desire to actively contribute to the environment protection: lithium-ion technology power tools, indeed, contain 70% heavy metals less than the tools supplied with nickel cadmium batteries, and produce 40% carbon dioxide less. The works were then judged by a jury chaired by the director of the Academy, who awarded the most deserving artists with complete power tool kits, in order to encourage these young and talented artists to keep using their manual skills to express their own creativity.

The return of manual skills in the field of art, this is what the event tried to tell us, is possible, also thanks to some companies that work in completely different fields, and which give artists the possibility to enter a new dimension, which is in part different from that of the artists/artisans of the past, but which also has some undeniable points of contact with it.

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This article was written by Francesca Tessarollo with support from commercio macchine utensili. For more information, please visit utensili manuali or utensili per legno.

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