Frigido. When cold becomes art

Alice Pedroletti, a young Milanese artist, chose the cold (frigidus) as a way to break with existing form for an event organised by Frigodiffusione at Frigoriferi Milanesi.
Alice Pedroletti is a young artist and photographer who focuses her craft on the many aspects of life and vision. Her works explore the relationship between man and the environment, the personal and collective memory of places, time and space, and the etymological and semantic study of words that accompany actions; creating archives as an individual discipline and artistic practice. Frigido. Vita di un archivio (2012) is about the birth and life of Alice’s archive and is presented as the story of a
creative process. Alice used her archive of photographs as inspiration and selected negatives of past experiences, old jobs, and faded memories from which she decided the time had come to make a break. By submerging the chosen negatives in liquid nitrogen she subjected them to sub-zero temperatures and an irreversible chemical change that transformed them into something akin to crystals. After removing the negatives from the liquid nitrogen Alice preceded to destroy them. The negatives shattered with no real control into different sized pieces, changing their appearance and their meaning: they lost their role as master copies, and also lost the images they had once borne, and gained accentuated materiality, another form and new value as works of art. The next step was to methodically file the fragments in order of size, an action that marked the genesis of a new archive.
The exhibition at Frigoriferi Milanesi is the debut showing of a project that evolves over time, following the artist’s
ideational and cognitive path. In addition to a series of coloured fragments framed on canvases and some abstract slides, the exhibition also includes Alice’s notes, studies, tools and a video that reveals the groundbreaking process
involved in her work.
“I chose the cold (frigidus) as the idea of definitive immobility, as way to break with existing form. The cold is no longer something from which we must or can protect ourselves, but something to be tackled head on. “Frigido” is thought, and memory, it’s the moment in which the pain of an emotion allows us to grow. “Frigido” is detachment, a break with the past” – Alice Pedroletti. e cambiano sia aspetto, sia significato: hanno perso la loro funzione di matrici, e con essa l’immagine di cui erano portatori, assumendo un’accentuata matericità, un’altra forma e una nuova valenza come opere. Il passo successivo è la metodica archiviazione dei frammenti secondo un ordine di grandezza, gesto che segna la nascita di un nuovo archivio.
Quella ai Frigoriferi Milanesi è la prima presentazione di un progetto che si evolve nel tempo, seguendo il percorso ideativo e conoscitivo dell’artista. Oltre a una serie di frammenti colorati incorniciati in telai e ad alcune proiezioni astratte, la mostra comprende appunti, studi, strumenti e un video che svelano l’inedito procedimento del suo lavoro.

Ho scelto il freddo (frigidum) come idea di immobilità definitiva, di rottura con la forma esistente. Il freddo non è più qualcosa da cui doversi o potersi proteggere, ma qualcosa da affrontare. Frigido è il pensiero, il ricordo, è l’attimo in cui il dolore di un’emozione ci fa crescere. Frigido è il distacco, la cesura con il passato” – Alice Pedroletti

Who is Alice Pedroletti

Alice Pedroletti
Was born and grew up in Milan, where she still lives and works today. She has taken part in many group exhibitions in recent years, mainly with installations and photographic projects, but also with videos and performances. Some of these were first inspired during art residencies, such as the recent Senza Titolo (AKM0 art residency, Gozzano, 2012), during which Alice used her family archive and personal life experiences
to retrace the memory of Lake d’Orta and the Bemberg textile factory (which is now disused), where her grandmother worked for more than thirty years. Alice’s latest experience was in Florida, where she presented a work about the “madness” of Henry Flagler, the American oil tycoon who was responsible
for building the road from Miami to Key West and the “Old Seven Mile Bridge” at the beginning of the last century. At the time this colossal bridge was said to be the Eighth Wonder of the World.
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Frigoriferi Milanesi
[highlight color=”orange”]Frigoriferi Milanesi[/highlight] is a place that focuses on art and culture where people can meet and exchange ideas. It organises many initiatives, such as Frigodiffusione which is a collection of shows, presentations and discussions open to everyone involving expressive experimentations on a range of themes. A new cultural frequency that you can tune into at any time.