“Concealed Identity”, critic text by Giovanni Ivan Bianchi, 2011, eng

Two black knights, who in the common imagination refer to dark and mysterious forces, face each other boldly. The black knight, in fact, of a hard and firm character, represents the one who inspires terror, an ancestral fear linked to its manifestation with the color of darkness.

The medieval knights are symbolically represented only by the "sparrow-beaked" helmet, the classic Italian helmet with an extremely complex construction, which was very snug and effectively protected the head ensuring maximum mobility. They have their visors down to conceal their identity and perhaps, to paraphrase Italo Calvino, their existence.

They can indeed remember the protagonist of the novel "The non-existent Knight" who is a model knight, but non-existent, who manages to be present in the war against the infidels, only with the willpower. Calvino stresses that his "voice came metallic from inside the closed helmet, as if it were, not a throat, but the helmet itself to vibrate ..."

So we can also imagine the metallic and deep voice of the knights of Andrea Morucchio, transported from the distant past to our present. Placed opposite each other, the two faces look at each other attentively. Placed opposite each other, the two faces scrutinize each other carefully. They are two identical helmets, which mirror each other, which double. They are two perfectly equal forces ready to confront. The clash / encounter is therefore between the ego and its double, and is proposed as an identity problem. A form of narcissism that alludes to the attraction that a person feels for his own image and for himself.

An attraction that can result in love or hate, and so also between the two knights a relationship is established that can be resolved in an complicit dialogue or a challenge to the death, to decree the supremacy of one over the other. Made of blown, cast and satin black glass, the two helmets with a simple and essential shape therefore evoke a state of "suspended" tension that involves the viewer, making him a participant in the encounter of two primordial forces that perpetuates over time.