The exhibition Herbarium Mirabile, welcoming visitors in Verona inside Marmomac (26-29 September), the most important fair in the world covering the entire chain of value of stone production, from the quarry to the crafted product, technologies to machines and tools, stems from the idea and the charm of antique herbaria, the collections of dry plants attached to paper with the description of their forms and virtues.
In terms of innovation and education, this trade fair is now the leading international hub for the industry and its protagonists, a platform where business meets professional updating. In this perspective, one of the areas of Marmomac, The Plus Theatre, at pavilion 10, is transformed into a center of culture and training with talks, lectures and workshops on natural stone, along with four exhibitions of experimental works.
One of the shows is Herbarium Mirabile, created and curated by the designer Raffaello Galiotto. Visitors are invited to enter a botanical garden of stone, composed of 17 marble sculptures that draw inspiration from the geometry of plants in nature. Inside a rectangular space enclosed by semi-transparent walls, the works stand on leveled boulders of Botticino marble, set on a surface of crushed granulated stone. The arrangement is irregular, but the sculptures are strategically distanced in the space to allow viewers to explore every single work.
All the pieces have been designed and produced with advanced parametric 3D modeling software using high-precision numerically controlled machines. This avoidance of any traditional handiwork in the finishing of the sculptures, with the choice of making exclusive use of machines, reflects the experimental, avant-garde character of the show, and its objective of exploring a new language of expression.
Herbarium Mirabile offers an opportunity for a close look at the beauty of colored marble varieties from different parts of the world, for sensory perception of the angles, incisions and unusual surfaces shaped by tireless numerical devices.
Every sculpture has been made in synergic collaboration with groups of exhibiting companies that are leaders in various segments of the sector: production of machinery, workmanship and processing, quarrying.
