This
exhibition is about the force that moves the ground. Soil fertility
has become a decisive issue of today, but our ability to cultivate
soil has not received equal attention.

Without
moving the earth, humans could not grow anything, and agriculture
would not exist.

As
man’s predisposition towards cultivation, the subject of strength
has also not been sufficiently discussed.

Without
returning to the ground, there can be no recovery of capacity.

The
2007/08 economic crisis has intensified in the following years,
turning into an ongoing structural crisis. My generation has only
experienced an economic decline in adulthood. We are, however, old
enough to remember the predeceasing times of prosperity and peace.

Not
much later, the European sovereign debt crisis, which arose from
2010, exposed ancient and eminent countries to a circumstance close
to default.

In
this context, the subsequent pandemic is – ultimately – part of a
climate of long agony. Like after a bombing, when one leaves the
shelter and begins to count the damages, the Westerners also note
their loss of capacity and strength.

I
am not fond of bucolic descriptions of returning to the ground, and I
prefer to focus on the lack of ability to cultivate. Moving the
ground should be the first skill that humans should recover.

It
is essentially about being able to “generate something” out of
nothing. The simple act of plowing and planting is the primordial
reconstitution of Genesis.

I
am sure most of us have walked near a freshly sown field, witnessing
crops being set free instead of buried under the weight of heavy
steps. Sown land establishes deep respect, which unconsciously frees
us from imposed dignity. Immersed in this feeling of implicit
observance, we establish – perhaps unconsciously – a subordinate and
religious relationship with cultivation, taking us back to when there
were no places of worship because the agricultural field itself was
perceived as a sanctuary.

This
inherent respect for the land is the best tool to get out of this
supposedly economic crisis, which today, as we know, is above all an
existential crisis of our society.

Therefore,
knowing how to move the ground is more an act of genesis than an act
of beginning. Pluto here is an image of agricultural capacity. In
Renaissance iconography, the god of agriculture is a ferocious and
gifted man. The one in this exhibition is only a man facing the
immensity of arable land, today, ideally, extended into infinity, up
to the ends of the world.

The
more agricultural land we move, the more strength and power we bring
into the world.

Luca
Francesconi, 2022