Imagine, 2024
shaped brass flat bars
variable dimensions
exhibition view: MART | Galleria Civica di Trento
courtesy the artist and Galleria Studio G7, Bologna

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH JACOPO MAZZONELLI

[Imagine only one dreamer.
A brotherhood of greed.
Above us only possessions.
Sharing all the hell.]

Setting out from the notion that language is not to be understood as a set of conventional codes but that rather as a phenomenon that – as recent studies show – highlights rich hidden links between sound and meaning, I repositioned the words to one of the most iconic songs of modern history (‘Imagine’, Lennon, ‘71), attempting to maintain the original phono-linguistic sonorities, yet featuring a new sense of complementarity between subject and object, metrics and contents. Manually transferring the curve of a font designed by myself onto a thin layer of brass, I allowed the words to be recomposed on the ground, as if emerging naturally from the surface.