We immediateiy noticed a iarge collection of hourglasses, some of which were lyroken, but displayed in such a way that they seemed even more precious than the working ones. We understood, even before he opened his mouth, that here was a man who is as interested and in love with the objects that he designs and produces by himseif as he is attentive to communicating the idea or the motions ftom which they are born. Times runs time stops time turns over without mechanical commands ... without presumption of eternity. The time of the hourglasses is established by ourselves. "When I was a child one of my toys was an hourglass. observing time pass by through a piece of glass has always fascinated me", says Bruno Venturelli while he caresses one of his creations. "Slowness, for example, overturning, stopping, thisflowing of sand which unavoidably attracts you towards natural, purely gravitational time. Or like running water like wine poured from a bottle into a glass, like dust moved by the wind. Everything goes more or less quickly, as nature wants, as we want. It's our time, my time, and the individual perception we have of it. Sand stops. Sand moves. It runs down in grains and deposits, it slips into a space that coilects it. 

It often has a story, it comes from somewhere, like the sand I collected yesterday in the Bay of Silence in Sestri Levante or that friendls of mine bring me from exotic, faraway countries. I create hourglasses thinking about time in this way. I have suffered ftom insomnia for many years and I begun begun this activity almost as a hobby, given that I designed other objects to earn my living. My first collection comprised about forty pieces. It was the realisation of an idea, the success that they had at the exhibition in the Blanchaert Galler, has driven me to continue. I also collect them: I have examples of African, English and Arabian hourglasses. I love this object for what it is and for all the various form it can take on. Then Ifeel it as much as I can with sand. Every hourglass stops a certain time, it is never an antique, they are pure archetypes that are often created from the recovery of what other people throw away. A piece of a disk brake. ball bearings, or other things, such as waste from aluminium processing, suggest a way of impianting the glass ampoules of a hourglass. I try to recover what other people throw away or lose, such as time, infact" While Venturelli communicates his thoughts, he walks up and down his home, opens a book and sips a glass of wine while the notes of a wonderfully serene symphony are heard in the background. Then he opens a book and reads a passage by Baudeiaire

poesia o di virtù: come vi pare. Ma ubriacatevi.
E se talvolta sui gradini di un palazzo, sull'erba verde di un fosso, nella tetra solitudine della vostra stanza, vi risvegliate perché l' ebrezza è diminuita o scomparsa, chiedete al vento, alle stelle agli uccelli, all'orologio, a tutto ciò che fugge, a tutto ciò che geme, a tutto ciò che scorre, a tutto ciò che canta, a tutto ciò che parla, chiedete che ora è; e il vento, le onde, le stelle, gli uccelli,l'orologio, vi risponderanno: "E' ora di ubriacarsi! Per non essere gli schiavi martirizzati del tempo, ubriacatevi, ubriacatevi sempre! Di vino, di poesia o di virtù , come vi pare". E' una lettura in un certo senso provocatoria, ma che ci porta a riflessioni ancor più intense e più distanti e la nostra conversazione va a toccare argomenti che evocano l'ansia barocca del tempo che fugge.
Proprio qui, nella fantasia e nella penombra delle raffigurazioni secentesche, la clessidra domina ogni scena e si attesta come il miglior misuratore del tempo... del nostro umanissimo tempo