Italian artist Gilberto Zorio uses saltwater, bamboo sticks, and terracotta layered with materials such as lead, hydrochloric acid, and powdered sulfur to investigate alchemical concepts of energy and transformation. Emerging as part of the Arte Povera movement in Italy during the late 1960s, Zorio joined a group of artists who were interested in using nontraditional and sometimes discarded materials as a response to the shifting economic conditions in Italy’s urban centers. His sculptures often challenge typical notions of objecthood by setting up chemical or physical reactions meant to occur over the life cycle of his works. Time, therefore, is a central component in Zorio’s continually mutable art.
–Mason Cho, from the Glenstone Field Guide