Chatarra which means scrap metal in Spanish, is the raw material I use for my sculptures. I don’t expect my des-chatarros to be regarded as works of art, at least not in the traditional, unambiguous and explicit sense commonly meant by the term.

I don’t deny, indeed I am pleased (and surprised!) by the effect they manage to have on me and on others. And it’s only natural – as when something arouses curiosity or pleasure rather than indifference – that the result should fill me with satisfaction. There is no aesthetic model or plan, however, guiding my hands as I create them.

What lies behind them is a therapeutic-soothing need for me, and an – ethical more than aesthetic – appeal to others.
My sculptures are generated by my hands, while my mind is occupied with other things, or acts as a curious observer, playing the part of adviser or “odd-job boy”, merely solving logistical and construction problems. These hands, holding, disassembling, reassembling, screwing and unscrewing, echo my mother’s when she’s knitting, or hands rolling the beads of a rosary. Although I have no religious or mystical vocation, I feel that my mind, my cunning-mind, seizes the moment and wanders, free and deep. And this does me good.

The pieces of metal, the multiple components of diverse mechanisms and machines, normally built to perform anonymous but precise functions, lie rusting and inert when the contraptions of which they were once a part fall into disuse, waiting for corrosion to make them disappear forever or, at best, for some recycling device to recondition them for a new purpose. This is because they have been condemned by their DNA – the one determined by a consumer, post-industrial society, in which even human beings are valuable only to the extent that they are useful, otherwise they are disposed of – to be useful, only materially useful, without the possibility of eliciting any kind of spirituality and ultimately to become “chatarra”.

From the waste disposal site, from forgotten corners or from the back of our drawers, the pieces of metal are imploring: “Save us!”. Even those that are still in working order or actually new are crying “Free us!”. And so my hands offer them an unprecedented opportunity to become the stars of a collective aesthetic adventure and, in some cases, to offer a bit of light as well.

LUIS MARIO BORRI

Born in Berisso, Republic of Argentina, on 8th November 1950, the son of Italian immigrants, father of four daughters, colour-blind, left-handed, self-taught and exiled from his country during the dictatorship, he has lived in Brazil, Sweden and Italy.
Since 2012 he lives at Reggio Emilia, Italy, where is member of  the Circle of Artists.