Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Untitled (Black & Black)" is a work by Pier Paolo Calzolari from 1986. The full installation measures nearly 8 feet high by 8 feet wide and extends 2 feet from the gallery wall. The dimensions of each component are varied within that frame. The piece is composed of two sections, one hanging vertically on the wall about two feet above the other, which runs horizontally along the gallery floor. A single copper pipe stretches down from the section on the wall to reach the ground section, the only connector between them.

The wall section includes a jet-black panel hanging vertically, about 8 feet high by 2 feet wide. A thin gray sheet of lead is attached to each edge of the panel where it protrudes out from the wall; they are wrinkled, demonstrating their malleability. Along the left edge of the panel, not one but many layers of lead sheets are stacked together, tightly packed like gills. They are difficult to identify because they are thickly covered with layers of brilliant white frost, sparkling and glittering as it catches the gallery light. At the base of this left side of the panel a pipe extends down to a small refrigeration unit humming on the gallery floor below the work.

The ground section of this work is about 8 feet long by 2 feet wide made of long lead sheets laid horizontally along the floor against the gallery wall. A chalky white powder is scattered along its dark gray surface in shapes that appear to have formed organically, as if saltwater pools had collected and then evaporated. A small motor sits on the far-left edge of the lead sheet, adjacent to a black compressor with a rounded top and a cooling structure contained within a rectangular metal box. This is surrounded by copper evaporator and condenser coils, which are attached to the lower-left corner of the wall panel and cause the freezing process. The whole unit is about 2 feet square, as if a refrigerator’s inner workings were removed and repurposed for use here. Calzolari’s interest in organic materials and chemical and physical transformation is evident in this artwork and reflective of Arte Povera, an Italian art movement of which he was a member.

The contradictory nature of salt, necessary for life and yet deadly in large doses, is mirrored in the polar opposites of black and white, and absence and presence of color throughout the artwork. Both refrigeration and salt are intended to preserve things but through very different processes. Salt is a natural preservative, while refrigeration works through a chemical process of transforming a liquid into a gas, and this evaporation cools the surrounding area.

While made of unique materials, this work evokes a minimal vertical painting in deep black with a vibrant strip of white along its left side. Calzolari was drawn to frost as a luminous material. In his own words, “I saw how this sort of absolute, unparalleled whiteness had the capacity to constantly renew itself... and be something that was not just white, but rather a sort of pulsation.” Why might Calzolari have titled this artwork "Untitled (Black & Black)" when the color white is so essentially present in the frost and evoked through Calzolari’s use of salt before being burned black?

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