2020
Centrifugal is the artist’s response to a specific request from the client, represented by the municipal administration of the town. Once a year, Peccioli becomes an important destination for cycling, as the traditional "Coppa Sabatini" is held in its territory, a annual race since 1952. It is for this reason that Cavenago was put forward to design a work on the theme of cycling. For the positioning of the sculpture, Cavenago accepted the offer of the client who chose a strategic and particularly significant area for the competition. It is a space delimited by a large bend that cyclists tackle uphill. A curve located a few hundred meters from the finish, near the center of Peccioli. So, the relationship with the environment and with the competition will become fundamental elements for the development of the work for Peccioli.
Made in Cor-Ten steel, Centrifugal is almost a parallelepiped, empty inside, offset in its shape and longitudinally decomposed to be able to bend thirty degrees inside the bend. It is a deconstructed volume on four large wheels, two of which, those inside the curve, on the ground and the other two, the external ones, almost raised from the ground due to the inclination. Unlike the canonical location "on the public square and in an upright form", Cavenago's sculpture is inclined and on a curve. Unlike a monument on a pedestal where the public walks around it, it location along a road allows only viewing in motion, preferably aboard a vehicle on the way to Peccioli.
The shape of the work, although characterised by a minimal essentiality, firmly anchored to an abstract dimension, unequivocally refers to cycling, evoking with its position and its location the figure of the racer inclined in the bend. The title of the work refers to the centrifugal force that comes into play when a vehicle speeds along a curve. A physical factor that even a runner must take into account: the cyclist bends in the curvilinear section with his bicycle inwards to compensate for the push towards the outside.
The inclination of Centrifugal becomes visually effective and surprising when the work is observed in the moment when the passage of the racers takes place in that precise stretch of the path. It is at that point that Centrifugal ideally enters the race, at that moment when his position coincides with that of the cyclists who race parallel to it.
Bibliography
Umberto Cavenago, edited by Antonella Soldaini, Municipality of Peccioli, 2021
| Artista | Umberto Cavenago |
| Titolo Opera | Centrifugal |
| Data | 2020 |
| Tecnica | Cor-Ten steel |
| Tipologia | Sculpture |