Engraving as a Project

by Silvia Cuppini, 2013

text in the catalogue “The sign incarnate”

Like an engraved anatomy lesson, highly reproducible for the widest possible distribution, the pieces of the human body or bodies in pieces of Francesca Magro’s works are the “pages” of her book.

Leonardo was the original explorer of human anatomy. The Vitruvian man, measure of all things, was the central symbol of humanism. Much closer to a post human culture we find Francesca Magro’s etchings and engravings, the same culture which has declared the death of humanism and affirms the prevalence of biotechnology and genetic manipulation in viewing man as a modifiable object, ready to be assembled and disassembled.
Deep down in those dark eyes made up of frequent insistent lines which reflect no light, sad nostalgic eyes, mourning a world which is forever lost. They are women and children still tied together by an umbilical chord, by an interrupted birth. Francesca’s creatures fascinate us for their lack of conclusiveness, rather than their desire to express a change.
The figures are still wound up in their cocoons, mere sketches of bodies waiting for the oppotunity to mature.