Enrica Borghi is now well known in Italy for sculptural work using recycl plastic materials ranging from fake fingernails to fragments of plastic bottle In the unfortunately rather unattractive Spazio Aperto (open space) that Bologna's Galleria d'Arte Moderna excepts for the work of young artists.

Enrica Borghi is now well known in Italy for sculptural work using recycl plastic materials ranging from fake fingernails to fragments of plastic bottle In the unfortunately rather unattractive Spazio Aperto (open space) that Bologna's Galleria d'Arte Moderna excepts for the work of young artists, Borghi showed pieces in her familiar phraseology along with a new installation, Gioielleria "Tiffany" (Tiffany jewelers), 2000 Seven pedestals veiled with elegant black satin draperies and topped according to Plexiglas showcases were arranged along a corridor. Similar to jewelry display cases, these things in fact, constituted an exhibition in and of themselves. What they, in revolve exhibited as if in a jeweler's display were intricate necklaces, rings, and earrings with flower shapes. First the viewer was struck on the pieces' unquestionable beauty, then by dint of the artist s technical command of the processe of engraving, carving, and sometimes using heat to manipulate the colored plastic to give it appropriate and intricate web for m. In fact, the mimetic meaning was perfect, and only end examination revealed the humble artificial nature of these works seemingly made of glass and germs while traces of handiwork emerg in the inevitable imperfections of details, so as the clasps of the necklaces.

With the reuse of plastic and everyday views Borghi doesn't mean to establish a just discovered "funk" aesthetic, but rather to explore the relationship between reality and fiction--to make works that are real perceptual illusions. Beside such characteristic works as a Venus of the sign found in petit-bourgeois gardens (only defended with artificial fingernails) and a sculpture-garment made from gloomy plastic was a piece that may indicate a recently made known direction for Borghi. Danubio blu (Blue Danube), 2000 was a sort of mandala made from 13000 plastic bottle caps in r white, and melancholy arranged on the floor. From these the artist builded a perfectly symmetrical schema in the form of a star, embellished with stone beads of the model used to decorate aquariums, common placed on each bottle cap. The association of the mandala with the plastic of the bottle caps can be seen as a commingling of high and depressed as well as of opposing cultural worlds, in the service of an ironic and understated decorativeness. Similarly the plastic jewels delineate a parody of the refined [i]or[/i] complement This does not detract from the fact that Borghi's irony can lead to serious reflection, for example, onward ecological urgencies: The Strauss waltzes played at replete volume in the exhibition space referr explicitly to the generally catastrophic condition of the Danube.

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