In the presence of the highest Authorities of the City of Biella and the Sella Family, the monument Quintino, created to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the CAI Biella section, enters the art collection of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. and is permanently placed in front of the entrance of the Biella headquarters, in Piazzetta 150° CAI Biella.
“First of all,” says Daniele Basso, ‘I am very happy that the work ’Quintino' is welcomed not only into the art collection of Banca Patrimoni Sella & C., but precisely as a symbolic monument of the Piazzetta CAI, inside the BPS headquarters in Biella. And I am grateful not only to Andrea Formagnana, president in the 150th year of CAI Biella, but to the entire Sella family, and especially Federico, for this choice. A monument that becomes public and usable to all, symbolically helping CAI Biella in its extraordinary intent to bring the mountain, its values and teachings, to the center of the city, and to reflect on how we can act personally to “safeguard such a delicate and extraordinary ecosystem.”
Quintino-continues the artist Basso-is a symbol both of Biella Unesco Creative City and Alpine City in 2021, and of the Biella area that looks beyond and recognizes in the mountains a strategic resource, in the economic, cultural and social spheres, for the future development of our wonderful territory! It represents a child dreaming exploring the magical boundary between heaven and earth in the Mucrone profile. It is Quintino Sella's vision of discovering and enhancing the mountain, which today has become a reality in CAI's mission in protecting it as the foundation of our cultural identity.
“A work that,” Basso concludes, ‘in its magical mirrored surfaces allows us all to recognize ourselves as part of a system, and in the deliberately ’unfinished' parts expresses a continuous and endless work to be done together with a common goal. A monument that in its permanent location qualifies in the eyes of the community the place that hosts it by further tying it to the mountain, a place that I hope can live on with many events, to enter the hearts of all the people of Biella who recognize themselves in the values of the mountain. Especially in the attitude of looking beyond the superfluous, to the root of things, to build a better future in which to live.”