[...] Pattini a rotelle è la ricostruzione in lamiera metallica dell’oggetto menzionato nel titolo. Realizzata in più esemplari di varie misure (dal 35 al 45), non era però progettata e ‘prodotta’ per sopportare il peso corporeo, dovendo rappresentare soltanto il simbolo concettuale di un veicolo minimo, un “amplificatore antropomorfo di velocità”. Tale però fu il potere di coinvolgimento e di destabilizzazione che l’opera fu in grado di innescare nel pubblico alla sua prima esposizione, che alcuni esemplari furono distrutti dai tentativi di utilizzazione attuati spontaneamente da alcuni visitatori.

Luigi Di Corato, 2003

Pattini a rotelle by Umberto Cavenago
 

Umberto Cavenago begins to cross the history of art with vehicles (trucks, skates, motorcycles...) equipped with wheels; these wheels guarantee movement but also a consequent instability, the same one that, ironically, in the second phase of his work, gave rise ideally to that "support of art" of the large frames, columns and telescopic beams.
The survey is mainly developed on two tracks: that of form and that of function. The shape is linear, essential, synthetic, and finally softened by the wheels that give it an extraordinary vitality. The function is to ironically overturn the values and priorities so-called "genres", for example, which, especially in the past, may have been a constraint for a freer interpretation of a world still as mysterious as that of art. Galvanized sheet is the coat of all this, apparently cold. Yet these "vehicles" are enveloped by a captivating energy, by a sort of anthropomorphism subtly functional to the artist's discourse. The series of roller skates is built respecting the real proportions: the number thirty-seven is really the number thirty-seven. Every relationship is always thought out and nothing is left to chance.

Vittoria Coen