Yuri Ancarani

Il Capo (The Chef)

Film, colour, 15', 2010

From April 29 to June 14, 2026, the Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain is pleased to host the Biennial of Urban Art and Nature (re)connecting.earth on the screens of the Mire program at the Chêne-Bourg and Eaux-Vives train stations!

Monte Bettogli, Carrara: in the marble quarries of the Apuan Alps, the foreman coordinates quarry workers and heavy machinery using a language consisting solely of gestures. Directing his team like an orchestra, with confidence and precision, the work remains dangerous. Despite the harshness of the environment and the deafening noise, his demeanour reveals an unexpected, almost choreographic elegance, in a paradoxical silence. The film transforms industrial labour into a visual choreography, revealing the aesthetic and ritualistic dimension of an extractive gesture. Whereas traditional documentaries portray quarrymen as neo-realist archetypes, Ancarani highlights their practical intelligence and sensitivity in an extreme environment. The foreman’s movements, repeated and codified, appear like a dance, whilst the machines become the instruments of a powerful mise-en-scène. This perspective on marble extraction goes beyond mere documentation to reveal the aesthetic and ritual dimension of technical gestures. The artist explains : “in a lot of documentaries about the marble quarries, the quarrymen, are shown as Neorealist archetypes, tough guys made of sweat and swear words. I, on the other hand, admire their practical intelligence: it is a form of elegance that can teach us a lot, and which my head quarryman possesses: he is a man who has style in his gestures and manners. In such a tough and dangerous environment I wanted to highlight an aspect of delicacy”. This video invites us to rethink our view of extractive practices. It reveals the human, technical and symbolic complexity at play within these landscapes transformed by industrial activity.

Video presented as part of the 3rd (re)connecting.earth Biennial, organised by the art-werk association.