– 155

The lamp is made from tarmac, a material inherently linked to oil and petroleum, which, with its cracks and fissures, is well suited to holding the lamp oil and wicks. The artist has used the reverse side of the tarmac that paved the square outside of the train station in Casale. Like a plaster cast, it carries the impressions of the cobbles underneath. Indeed, the capacity of tarmac to conserve traces of the past – in a sort of new archaeology of construction materials – gives the work its title: Testimonianza d’asfalto (Tarmac Testimony). In other words, the tarmac is able to preserve, albeit as a negative copy, that which it had covered.