On September 15, 2011 Massimo De Carlo opens Basements, a solo show in which Massimo Bartolini presents a new series of works. As usual, this exhibition talks about the conciliation of the opposites and of the leftovers generated by this operation that should, in the end, hopefully produce meaning. The show develops in the three rooms of the gallery. In the first room is the bronze sculpture Basement (2011), which gives the name to the entire exhibition. A work that perfectly reflects the artist’s practice, which sees the earth, intended as the root of life and thus linked to the necessity of settling down, as protagonist. Basement: as well as referring to the base of the sculpture this word also refers to that part of the building where discarded materials and machinery are kept. It is the invisible that supports the rest. Basement is a statue that holds up a statue, it is lifted up ground, it transforms horizontal things into vertical ones, it robbed a portion of landscape to transform it into a cultural tool. Basement is a 40 cm high fragment of a ploughed field with a surface of 4 m2. For this conciliatory “return trip” between two opposite elements, Massimo Bartolini decides to exhibit La strada di sotto (2011) creating a connection between two different and distant rooms of the gallery. The sculpture in room one is composed of hundreds of lights, typically used in village festivities, laid out on the floor, lighting up intermittently. Their lighting up, switching off and dissolving away is determined by sounds, words and by the pauses in the video shown in room two.