“When spring arrives, the male beetle locates a trunk in which to breed, enters under the bark and starts “writing”: the bark beetle’s Latin name is Ips typographus, the typographical beetle, precisely because it digs tunnels inside the tree trunk that look like typographical marks. Due to the rise in average temperature, compared to pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), trees have suffered water stress due to drought and extreme weather events have increased. Since 2018, also due to Storm Vaia, perfect conditions have been created for the bark beetle to proliferate, and especially in recent years, it has gone from being an insect that attacked dead trees to an insect that also attacks living trees in excellent condition. In the case of this project, frottages were performed on the trunks of several beech trees that had lived in the Valentino Park in Turin for nearly a century. The drought and high temperatures of 2021/22 caused severe stress to the point of death of several trees that were subsequently attacked by the bark beetle. Between August and September 2023 these plants were first dissected and then uprooted. Before explantation, I was able to record through the frottage technique the marks created by the bark beetle on 6 different trees. Each work is developed on three plates: the first one shows the development of the circumference of the trunk of the whole pattern that the insects have created under the bark; the second one shows inner surface of the bark that covers and protects the trunk; the third one, on the other hand, is related to the section of the trunk: the saw cut no longer allows us to read the memory of the tree and its surroundings because the rings are no longer visible. The work, then, is presented as a large glass photographic plate, on which the saw marks are silkscreened with a color created by the ash of their bark.” Michele Guido.
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7022
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Via Lodovico il Moro 1, Milan
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8 aprile – 14 giugno 2025
