32 by Luca Piola

Volumnia is pleased to host the exhibition project 32 by Luca Piola, curated by Andrea Tinterri. The show opens on September 19, as part of the XNL Aperto program involving the city of Piacenza, and will run until November 15, 2025.

The exhibition features 12 photographs from a series created by Piola titled 32.

The genesis of the project stems from a chance discovery on the seashore a weathered football, shaped by time and returned to the land by the tide. The archetypal form of the truncated icosahedron, composed of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons, begins to take on significance in Piola’s research, as he delves into its historical and conceptual correspondences: from Archimedes to Luca Pacioli, from Piero della Francesca to Cyrano de Bergerac, and even to the carbon molecule buckminsterfullerene.

Following this initial discovery, Piola continues his search, eventually collecting twelve balls objects that he carefully preserves, rescuing them from visual indifference. His images portray these leather spheres resting on the sand, like primordial particles adrift in a cosmic void. The archetypal form is cast into emptiness, serving as a metaphor for perpetual instability, for an existence we attempt to control, yet whose course always escapes prediction.
The number 12 refers to human totality; it is the number of harmony that connects the universe to mankind. Yet, in Luca Piola’s project, there emerges an underlying contradiction that unsettles any sense of certainty. Of the twelve footballs found and photographed, we know nothing of their history or their journey only their point of arrival. They are anonymous stories that orbit around their worn and eroded formal perfection.

This previously unpublished project is exhibited for the first time in the evocative setting of Volumnia, where the series is displayed in the transept. The installation presents the twelve photographs alongside the actual football objectsfeatured in the work.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication from Cimorelli Editore, featuring images from the project and a critical essay by Andrea Tinterri and Mauro Zanchi.