The Viasaterna Gallery presents Forma Mentis, an exhibition project which brings together the work of Barbara De Ponti (Milan, 1975) and Jens Risch (Rudolstadt, Germany, 1973). For the first time in Milan, the exhibition presents, the latest project by Barbara De Ponti, Clay Time Code, and a series of works by the German artist Jens Risch, produced between 2011 and 2016. The two artists, similar in age and artistic practice, are the protagonists of an original dialogue which stems from the recognition of a single sensationwhich is implicit in their respective careers, characterised by an extreme rigour and coherence of method. As the title suggests, Forma Mentis is an exhibition which orbits around the central theme of Form, seen on the one hand as an inherent principle of the very matter from which it is released, and on the other as a mental structure. Form, in fact, guides the production of both artists, moved by the will to reach as perfect a harmony as possible between content and representation, between the underlying concept of the work and its realisation.

Clay Time Code, produced by Barbara De Ponti in 2016 and shown at the International Museum of Ceramics, the Carlo Zauli Museum and the Civic Natural Science Museum in Faenza, is a series which has been created from the land of a particular geographic area (that of Faenza), characterised by the presence of a specific material which dates back to 400 million years ago: the blue clay of the Pleistocene sea. Similar to the work of De Ponti, Jens Risch’s work can also be read as a tribute to slowness. Since 2001, the German artist has focused exclusively on the creation of a series of sculptures made up of threads of silk about one kilometre in length, knotted to form an inseparable tangle.