The word Quary qualifies a place where rocks are excavated. It comes from the Latin quadrare “to make a square,” : a resistant block is chiseled, filed, and reamed until a vague artistic dream is locked by human craftmanship. The material resistance is part of the creative process, and its intrinsic properties are also the traits that make it difficult and fascinating to work with : this resistance is in a way the source of a silent dialog between the sculptor and the granite, onyx, or any other stone and organic material.
In the Strange Quarries curated by Galerie Philia and created by the talented architect and digital artist Enrico Capani, the resistance is not material but virtual and consequently interrogates the concept of materiality and its meaning. Here again, the excavation process is nourished by long research and results in finding treasures that are digitally “squared” by Enrico Capani’s technological and artistic talent.
The idea of those Strange Quarries is to offer a virtual exhibition, each season, of a selection of sculptural design pieces. Each exhibition is curated both by Galerie Philia and Enrico Capani, and the digital creations are all works of the latter.