Non Plus Ultra

The project, curated by Chiara Pietropaoli, has been carried out in collaboration with 56Fili, and counts on the organisational support of STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO.

In this installation, Gonzalo Borondo reflects on the concept of limits. The installation has been conceived as an experiential path in contact with a limit, a transparent labyrinth of signs and symbols, where the physical boundaries of glass reject and at the same time encourage us to look beyond, to project ourselves infinitely.

“Non Plus Ultra” is a unprecedented installation conceived in a travelling format, but at the same time site-specific. It is made up of 56 modules of glass sheets printed on both sides, measuring two and a half metres high and eighty metres wide. Gonzalo Borondo puts it together at each site according to his perception of the space where it is exhibited. “Non Plus Ultra” was exhibited for the first time in MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome in 2018. The sheets are composed of two graphic-pictorial images that coexist in space: on one side we find a column; on the other, a figure with its arms outstretched, reminiscent of the imagery of the crucifixion. The superimposition of the two levels of impression determines perceptive games that change the viewer’s vision, in relation to the point of view and the light. In the words of the artist: “Non Plus Ultra” is primarily an experience, a feeling. The spectator is constantly confronted with the limits of space, made up of glass sheets, visible but also transparent obstacles. Limits you could break, cross, if you choose to take a risk. Breaking limits is scary. We live with the fear of going beyond the limit, always accompanied by the feeling of uncertainty. But I believe that the artist within society precisely plays this role, transgressing the limits imposed by the rules.”

“Non Plus Ultra” channels both research on glass, on the poetics of transparency - produced by Borondo since 2011 - and experimentation in silk-screen printing, which is fed by the valuable collaboration with Arturo Amitrano, founder of 56Fili, whose technical skills, applied in an avantgarde sense, have guided the artist towards new paths. Since the beginning of his artistic activity, Borondo has seen glass as an interesting material to explore, a source of original creative possibilities, attracted by the opposites that characterise it: transparency and hardness; fragility and resistance; protection and danger.

He is also interested in its relationship with light and the elegance it transmits. In recent years, Borondo has tackled the subject with a multidisciplinary approach, articulating innovative formal solutions that combine skills from different areas and that have seen the practice of “glass scratching” evolve in relation to the artist's intentions: to enliven painting and to experiment with silkscreen printing. “Non Plus Ultra” is the result of a visionary perspective on screen printing, where the rules are shifted towards the unusual, where error is enjoyed, the cause before discovery, where the technique goes beyond the limits imposed by the blank sheet.