Emilio Prini

Emilio Prini (b. 1938, Stresa - d. 2016, Rome) has created two works for Due Leoni. The first is the result of an initial request to create an olive oil edition, which was met, over many months of negotiation, with the proposal to hammer nails into a 250 ml green metal can.  The result, artistically a reference to Lucio Fontana, or Yoko Ono’s Painting to Hammer a Nail In, is of utmost beauty, but utterly unusable.  It’s almost an insult to the farmer himself.  At the same time, and as if to reward the patience of curator Cornelia Lauf, Prini allowed only one, precious, piece to be completed. This unique version was punctured, with the approval of the artist, by Jessica Murtha Van Dyck.

A second edition for Due Leoni was created, in exchange for twenty litres of our finest extra virgin olive oil. What was meant to be a new and unlimited edition took over two years to produce (finished in 2012), and is, once again, a unique piece.  It consists of a copper bar, or standard measure, 1 meter, sourced by Veronica Bellei, and signed by the artist, which rests on two identical green 5-liter cans of olive oil. Dionysia Drakou, Jessica Murtha, and Martha Carillo Cardenas, assisted from time to time.  Here, Prini was teasing his long-time and deceased friend, Mario Merz, who created a work with neon and an olive oil can,  many decades earlier. The merciless game that is art. Pictured, the signed copper bar, which Cornela took to the Palazzo Altemps, and leaned against a famous sarcophagus, after a lecture she gave there.

Photo courtesy Cornelia Lauf