The Relay is the title of the site-specific artwork produced by Patrick Tuttofuoco and curated by Marcello Smarrelli in order to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the creation of the  Ermanno Casoli Prize.

The large neon installation revolves around the most important themes that have characterised Patrick Tuttofuoco’s artistic research over the years: family relationships and generational exchanges, the mechanisms and bonds that characterise and bring together communities. The title makes explicit reference to the only athletics discipline that is structured as team sport rather than an individual one, namely the relay race. In said Olympic discipline, athletes are to run a pre-set distance carrying a baton before passing it onto the next runner. The athletes’ hands, which touch each other while passing the baton, are the real protagonists of this artwork: they are one of the most important parts of the body and enable us to socialise, work, establish relationships and manifest our feelings. In this installation, the simple gesture of holding an object in one’s hands is expanded upon and shown in all its stages, thereby giving a spatial dimension to the notion of time. The act of receiving something and being able to pass it onto another human being becomes a metaphor for exchange, generosity and recognition, but also the changing of generations and life itself.

The Relay, which the Foundation donated to the Museo Premio Ermanno Casoli 1998-2007 museum, thus enriches the collection of the artworks acquired over the course of the first ten editions of the Prize that Gianna Pieralisi, wife of art-lover, artist and founder of the Elica company Ermanno Casoli, instituted together with her children Francesco and Cristina. The artwork, which has been installed in the entrance corridor of the Museo Premio Ermanno Casoli 1998 – 2007, serves as a silver thread between the first phase of the prize and the second one, which began in 2007 with the foundation of Fondazione Ermanno Casoli.

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