Whirligigs, washers, berries, iron, clay, bee-wax, chewing-gum, and whatever in nature hides Francesco Costantino's particular figure may transfom itself under owr eyes, in sculptures, shapes, faces and particular environment. This happens in Calcata, where some Artists live and whom their collective
Imagination joins to other romantic peoples coming from all over the world to live the nature and the millenial history of this unique suburb. These are the inhabitants of Calcata, now called "Artists": Sculptors, Writers, Poets, Doctors, Musicians, Artisans, Shepherds. They arrived here long time ago and they feel as if they are in the "heart" of the World. In this exhibition l'm the privileged protagonist speaking about them.

Catapulted in the Era, between Mastro Geppetto and Bill Gates, Francesco doesn't seem to be worried. He moves smily like an orchestra Director among pieces of cut bamboo cane, modelling peppers and simultaneously transforming a Cdrom into a shining whirligig.
The Game is important for him and his job, there is no room for programs, for calculations, he seems to be trusted to the knowledge of a millenial country culture, lived by the artist as a child. His thoughts and his argumentations manlife are positively wise, cultured and he projects lovable spaces to anything which is daily around him. "I look for and see the man in material, in shapes, in colours, in odours, in the flavour of nature" he says. He is curious to enter the artisans laboratories: the forger, the coach repairer, the leather manufacturer or the marble worker where he can f́nd, among the junk, the "ghost" and the "elves"of his fantasy.
He likes talking to himself and to others, transmitting his knowledge, expressing that the unnecessary, thejunk, the rubbish, may be exalted by the Human's hands. Walking along the way he finds "richness", the people, the relations, the combinations between subjects and material. I know that he periodically has educational experiences among groups of people and students, giving lessons on manual skills. He is a member of the Artists who are part of the "Opera Bosco Art Museum in the Nature" located on Valle del Treia of Calcata.

The energy and the infinite inventive generosity give the impression of Francesco Costantino as a Mr. Hula Hoop (for those who have never seen the film, this is the person who invents the hula hoop game among the hilarity of his acquaintances). The thought which puts together the personality of Francesco to Hoop, was suggested by my son and it is really appropriate. Not because our thought has to raise hilarity, but for the magic which he is able to give to anything he can reconcile.

These in display are sheets of paper f́lied up with multiform coloured chewing gum, the odours are those of vanilla, strawberry, rum, rosemary. At the beginning they may rise psychological amazement but it is misleading, as the intensità of the shapes, rich of "pathos" is great. 

Elisa Magri (translated by Carla Maria Corradi)

For Francesco Costantino
To build and to destroy. 
Destroy to build and build to destroy. 
Knowing what is done
and not knowing it
Unaware of building
And unaware of destroying
Willing to know or not

Emptiness is full of emptiness
And filled of filled
There is the filled and 
there is the emptiness
If it is not inside it is outside
On the right or on the left
If it is not at the bottom  look upwards.
The nose looks under the surface.

Push with Your finger move
and pull a material
Whic wants to remember its shape,
You convence her to new shapes
Into her mind, before the discharging.

Francesco Costantino in 2001 creates by matching the index finger to the thumb. He grows up a living hearth from a dead object and he shows it to me with joy, it is spinning: it removes our attention like the zig-zag of the moth before dying of light. Like this with the old Art of nothing we can measure the infinite.

Costantino Morosin