Alle 5 e 38 by Piotr Hanzelewicz @ LAVAPIU

Curated by Celeste

With a text by Christian Ciampoli

08.10 – 08.12.22

LAVAPIU, Via Nicola Castagna 9

Teramo

A glass tube that can hold 538 one-cent coins, corresponding to 538 prints […] I entrust the penny with the function of a token, “disambiguating” it […] Every morning until the opening, I will wake up at 5:38 to encounter the error […] During the opening, a “conformance” on the theme of the penny will be performed. This will take the form of a text read aloud by a smartphone voice synthesis app.

P. Hanzelewicz

The work presented by Piotr Hanzelewicz consists of a device of his own creation, activated during the opening night, which initiates an exchange process where the audience becomes the protagonist. The piece in question is a container—a 90-centimeter-long tube capable of holding 538 one-cent coins, totaling €5.38. For each coin, Hanzelewicz pairs a manually produced print made with trielina (a now-discontinued stain remover deemed highly toxic), numbered and signed.

The prints are left unattended in the space for the entire duration of the exhibition and can be purchased for the price of a single coin-token, to be inserted horizontally into the tube-device.

The choice of this specific coin stems from the limbo it has been in since January 2018: Italy suspended production of copper coins, though they remain in circulation elsewhere in the Eurozone. It is also emblematic that the lowest-denomination coin was the only one depicting a symbol of Southern Italy’s cultural and artistic heritage (Castel del Monte)—effectively stripping it of representation.

The meticulously calculated exchange system Hanzelewicz designs is a deeply personal blueprint for a utopian future, built on balances and equivalences. He entrusts it to a multitude of unknown social actors beyond his control, leaving it vulnerable to failure. The operation of the exhibition-device, installed in a 24/7 coin-operated laundromat, involves no surveillance. Instead, it hinges on the individual choices of visitors, free to either uphold the exchange pact or sabotage it—and on their ability to properly align the coins in a row. Hanzelewicz contrasts the closed function of the technical machine (the automated laundromat) with the infinite possibilities of desiring machines, in an arbitrary, fragile, and risky scenario open to error and failure.

Alle 5 e 38 by Piotr Hanzelewicz. Exhibition views from LAVAPIU, Teramo 2022 © Celeste.