Andrea Galvani © 2014-2015
Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido #1
C-print on archival paper mounted on aluminum dibond
White wood frame 115 x 148 x 5.5 cm / 45.3 x 58.3 x 2.2 inches

LLEVANDO UNA PEPITA DE ORO A LA VELOCIDAD DEL SONIDO

Boundaries change position, accumulate power, produce energy. They define topologies and conditions of differential equations in mathematics. They govern the laws of physics. Boundaries can be political, geographical, or psychological territories. Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido (2014-2017) extends our experience of spatial and temporal limits, articulating their physical and conceptual elasticity.
Training over the course of months and collaborating with engineers, producers, and pilots, Andrea Galvani flew parallel to military jets, orchestrating different actions oriented towards a new visionary perspective. In this body of work, boundaries are destabilized, describing the tension of in-between states. Freezing time at the cusp of separation, we are suspended between sound and silence, or between day and night. A memorial of life, death, and the transcendent beyond, this project memorializes trace existence in constant flux—articulating and extending the limits of physicality and immateriality. Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido, in its placid yet powerful simplicity, suggests violent transformation from a painful process to a peaceful, if transient, state of being.

Andrea Galvani Selected Works 2006-2016
Curated by Margherita de Pilati
14 October 2016 - 22 January 2017
Installation view at the Mart Museum | Galleria Civica di Trento
Photo by Fernando Guerra

Andrea Galvani © 2015
Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido #5 and #6
C-print mounted on aluminum dibond, light blue wood frame
188 x 208 x 7 cm / 74 x 81.8 x 2.8 inches, each

Sound travels in all directions across an omnipresent yet invisible field. To break the sound barrier is to reveal its physicality. As a jet plane accelerates from subsonic to supersonic speeds, sound waves compress and the atmosphere condenses in anomalous pockets of pressure. As it supersedes sonic velocity, the jet is temporarily absorbed in a cone of vapor — a nebulous portal to the sonic frontier. To cross the threshold of sound is to enter a state of silence. The intensity of this moment sends tangible reverberations, Mach waves, radiating to the ground. Such rapid pressure disturbances produce an explosion: the sonic boom. Galvani’s works, in their placid yet powerful simplicity, suggest violent transformation from a painful process to a peaceful, if transient, state of being.

Andrea Galvani © 2014
Epílogo #61-62 (Study on Aviation History) 
Pigment liner and felt-tip pen on archival paper
White wood frame, 44 x 28 cm / 17.3 x 11 inches

Andrea Galvani © The End [Action #5], 2015
Concrete structure with gold Apple MacBook
16mm film transferred to HD
155 x 28 x 20 cm / 61 x 11 x 7.9 inches 

Andrea Galvani © Study on Mach Waves, 2019
6500K neon, white blown glass, paint, electricity
Approx. 137 x 196 x 7 cm / 54 x 77 x 3 inches 

Andrea Galvani: The Sun, a Gold Nugget, and Seven Stairs
9 October - 5 December 2015
Installation and performance view
at The RYDER Projects, London
Photo by Tim Bowditch

Andrea Galvani © 2015
Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido #13
C-print mounted on aluminum dibond, light blue wood frame
Approx. 188 x 273 x 7 cm / 74 x 107.4 x 2.7 inches, framed

Andrea Galvani © Study on Aerodynamic Evolution, 2014-2015
Mixed media and drawing reproductions of archival material
White wood frame, 60 x 40 cm / 23.6 x 15.7 inches

Andrea Galvani © 2015
Llevando una pepita de oro a la velocidad del sonido #5
C-print mounted on aluminum dibond, white wood frame
188 x 208 x 7 cm / 74 x 81.8 x 2.8 inches

Andrea Galvani © The End [Action #5], 2015
16 mm film transferred to HD
Silk, steel, and concrete structure
180 x 151 x 32 cm / 71.3 x 59.4 x 12.6 inches
Installation view at Revolver Galería, Lima

The End [Action #5] documents a never-ending sunset, a segment of infinity. Filmed from a military aircraft flying at supersonic speeds opposite the earth's rotation, the video suspends the descending sun over an oceanic horizon. Time is frozen at the cusp of separation between day and night, forced perception of a ceaseless, distorted moment. Accelerated space produces violent vibrations, destabilizing the boundary of sea and sky. The video describes the tension of in-between states. Our experience of reality is disarticulated - we are at the precipice of the end. The End [Action #5] monumentalizes trace existence in constant flux. A metaphorical memorial of life, death, and the transcendent beyond, The End [Action #5] presents Being as a disequilibrium, a constellation of states in perpetual transformation.

Andrea Galvani © 2015
Still from The End [Action #5] 
16 mm film transferred to HD