Conserving the Future is the book that bears witness to twenty-five years of curating contemporary art in the same place: the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice. It is a long time in which curator Chiara Bertola has been able to observe the metamorphoses and rebirth of this ancient palace, which, through the different visions of the artists projected into its spaces, have made it many places each time. Conserving the Future is a program and a working method based on the relationship with time, the past, and history because in every project the historical place becomes a subject that asks to be seen, recognised, listened to and then opened to dialogue with present. Chiara Bertola recounts, in a single text that trace the site-specific exhibitions from 1997 to 2022, the questions, thoughts, and discoveries made together with the artists living with them the creative process. She defines a curatorial line beyond the canonical and consolidated confines, focused on the concepts of precariousness and instability. The perception of a time never closed, the intuition of hidden possibilities behind established meanings and the search for margins of meaning revealed beyond the usual confines become the keys to open up unexpected poetic worlds.

Michel Butor’s Description of San Marco (1963) is an unusual book; an unorthodox intermingling of overheard dialogue from the iconic Venetian square in question, thick descriptions of persons and buildings, along with sober historical information. In the original, each genre of information is assigned a distinct typography of its own, hence interacting like voices in a play.

Six decades later, the artist Giovanna Silva stumbled upon an English translation of the French essayist’s queer text in an archive at the New York Public Library. Returning to Venice, she cast her eye to the square and its surrounds, an iconic space at once populated by signs of contemporary life, but also astonishingly unchanged.

Art for UBI is a manifesto: the world of art positions itself in favor of universal and unconditional basic income, placing in the foreground its advantageous conditions in economic, social and ecological terms. The manifesto was born as collective writing within the School of Mutations, a project of the Institute of Radical Imagination, an international platform of artists, researchers, activists and curators engaged in the experimentation of post-capitalist artistic practices. In addition to the introduction by the curators, the volume contains the contributions of diverse artists, theorists and activists addressing UBI in the panorama of the generalized precariousness of artistic work, the demand for income in transfeminist and decolonial struggles, mutualism practices in the independent art scene, the relationship between finance, fabulation and crypto philosophy.

The volume includes the dramaturgy of Una Renta, Muchos Mundos / One Income, Many Worlds, a performative investigation by IRI on the subject of income conducted in Madrid involving a diverse sample of residents. The performance was staged at the Reina Sofia Museum in the framework of the program On The Precipice of Time. Practices of insurgent imagination. The Zapatista Forum in September 2021.

Texts by Emanuele Braga, Kuba Szreder, Ilenia Caleo, Maddalena Fragnito and Raising Care Assembly, Gabriela Cabaña and Julio Linares, Erik Bordeleau

Cabins is the outcome of Matteo Ghidoni’s theoretical and critical research on “being”. Relying on architectural drawing, and through the investigation of a human most basic needs, Ghidoni produces ten abstractions of architecture, dedicated to the care of body and soul.
Cabins are not residential units as described by modern architecture; they do not impose fixed domestic functions although they anticipate potential daily actions by organizing them around a certain minimum number of elements: a bath- tub, a sitting area, a shower, a shelf, and little more.
The sober character of the project is defined by the drawing exercise, bound to essential principles imposed on the sheet: the rigorous use of axonometry, the grid system for clad- ding, the repetition of standardized elements. They all come together describing the selfimposed and subtly circumvented rules of the game.

EUPavilion Eight proposals features eight projects for the first European Pavilion at the Venice Biennale drawing on both artistic and architectural practices from across Europe. Armature Globale, BB (Alessandro Bava and Fabrizio Ballabio) in collaboration with Tomaso De Luca, Jasmina Cibic, Diogo Passarinho Studio, Plan Común, Something Fantastic, TEN and Evita Vasiljeva were invited by the curators of the exhibition to reimagine the national pavilion – to this day the dominant symbolic and spatial paradigm in the Giardini and the Biennale context in general.

The EUPavilion catalogue is conceived as the collection of the results of the EUPavilion Eight Proposals exhibition alongside the research produced by the collective since 2018. It also features two essays by Sebastiano Fabbrini and Carlo Palazzolo. Its design is both a homage and a challenge to the bureaucratic aesthetics of EU publishing.

Argh! is an onomatopoeia which references a bodily expression, a state of mind described through a sound rather than words. It hints at fatigue, exhaustion but also a reaction and a release of the body towards a situation or an environment. Argh! introduces the recurring presence of the body in Davide Savorani’s series of private notebooks through drawings. They are an expressive necessity, but also an artistic tool of enquiry, a source of ideas, space for personal confessions and emotions.
This publication is an intense selection of drawings the artist made in the last 15 years. In doing this, we have paid attention to the crossing of visual scripts for performative actions, written materials describing personal occurrences or delving into theoretical obsessions. Rather than categorise or index the drawings, the graphic design as well as the text commissioned to and composed by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, embrace a lexicon of fragments, of chance overlapping and of close memories, triggered, yet not contained, by the drawings.

Argh! è un’onomatopea che rimanda a una manifestazione del corpo, a uno stato d’animo, cedendo a un suono la possibilità di esprimerlo. Allude alla stanchezza, all’esaurimento, ma anche a una reazione e a una liberazione del corpo nei confronti di una situazione o di un ambiente. Argh! riporta la presenza ricorrente del corpo nei disegni di Davide Savorani raccolti in diari personali. Il disegno per Davide Savorani è diventato una necessità espressiva, ma anche uno strumento artistico di indagine, una fonte di idee a cui attingere, uno spazio per confessioni private ed emozioni.
La pubblicazione è frutto di un’intensa selezione di disegni realizzati negli ultimi 15 anni. Nel concepirla, si è prestata attenzione alla sovrapposizione di script visivi pensati per azioni performative assieme a materiali scritti che descrivono avvenimenti personali o che approfondiscono ossessioni teoriche. Invece di categorizzare o indicizzare il materiale delle pagine dei taccuini, la coreografia grafica scelta così come le nuove parole scritte da Allison Grimaldi Donahue, abbracciano un lessico di frammenti, di sovrapposizioni casuali e di ricordi vicini, innescati, ma non contenuti, nei disegni stessi.

The book talks about graffiti writing, or more simply, writing. About tags, sprays, streets and letters. With the photographs and words of its protagonists, it tells the birth and evolution of this phenomenon in Italy, how a handful of kids changed the face of our cities forever. All it took was minimal resources, a lot of perseverance and a fair dose of style. Signatures appear on the ground, on lamp posts, on tall buildings, in the tunnels of the metro and on public transport. They are the triumph of overbearing individualism, a reaction to the city itself that tends to dissolve the individual.

Il libro parla di graffiti writing, o semplicemente di writing. Di nomi, spray, strade e lettere. Con le fotografie e le parole dei suoi protagonisti racconta la nascita e l’evoluzione del fenomeno in Italia, di come una manciata di ragazzi ha cambiato per sempre il volto delle nostre città. Sono bastati pochi mezzi, tanta perseveranza e una buona dose di stile. Le firme appaiono per terra, sui pali della luce, sui palazzi più alti, nei tunnel del metrò e sui mezzi pubblici. Sono il trionfo dell’individualismo prepotente, una reazione alla città stessa che tende a dissolvere il singolo.

with / con
Sonda, Vandalo, Graffio, Naps, KayOne, Rae, Dumbo, Verbo, Fone, Creso, Longe, Hekto, Zeal, Ouch, Utero, Zuek, Cento, Rame, Naso, Poison, Ver, Stand, Rocks, Jason, Heman, Atomo, Fumo, Joys, Peeta, Fayer, Zeal, Lemon, Sky4, ZeroT, Dayaki, Solow, Rendo, Spyder7, FlyCat, Drop C, Mace, Sika, Rusty, Kaos, Panda, Styng, Bean, Dem, Boost, Tawa, Metro, Airone, Eron, Lego, Dra, Krisa, Arix, Texas, Mind, Zoe, Blast, Fra32, Clock, Nitro, Muko, Trota, Sand, Rayn, Kid, Mastro K, Isey, Chob, Magma, Dafne, Senz, Karma, Evian, Oste, Brus, Pilchi, Snitch, Sher, Sera, Game, Zelda, Jamba, Sayko, Besk, Secse, Capo, Filthy, Hero, Worn, Rats, Files, Dodge, Wish, Rohw, Ringo, Font, Chaos, Rud, Onil, Enko4, Sherif, Matar, Norma, Dirty, Loser, Spice, Zeus, Neo, Pazol, Opium, Eroin, Giose, Cromo, Vins, Smit, P.zee, Fonser, Aber, Kotone, Tapes, Gees, Noce, Reps, Nemo, Swoc, Rhum, Daze, Rancy, Tyson, Doz, Kers
and many others… / e molti altri…

Works by: Andrea Abati, Giampietro Agostini, Giovanni Ambrosio / Sébastien Louis, Autopalo / Gli Impresari, Davide Baldrati, Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Walter Battistessa, Ruth Beraha, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Mario Cattaneo, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Cesare Colombo, Mario Cresci, Matteo de Mayda, Emilio Deodato, Paola Di Bello, Vittore Fossati, Federico Garolla, Carlo Garzia, Ando Gilardi, Giulia Iacolutti, Giuseppe Iannello, Mimmo Jodice, Martino Marangoni, Paola Pagliuca, Piero Pozzi, Marco Previdi, Daniele Segre, The Cool Couple, Hans van der Meer, A.S. Velasca, Fulvio Ventura, Manfred Willmann

Il volume interroga la scena del lungo Sessantotto in Italia all’incrocio tra sperimentazioni artistiche e politiche dei movimenti, alla ricerca di questioni che ancora assediano e turbano il presente. Questioni esplose allora, relative alla comunità, all’ibridazione disciplinare, ai processi di soggettivazione, alla relazione tra creazione e produzione sono tuttora dominanti nella prassi discorsiva e artistica della performance.

Un laboratorio italiano radicale, inventivo e non privo di contraddizioni, qui prende corpo attraverso temi e percorsi che hanno avuto la loro prima emersione negli anni Sessanta e sono venuti radicandosi e precisandosi nei Settanta, in quella forma-performance che deflagrava nello spazio delle lotte. Nel vivo delle geografie, degli ambienti, degli ecosistemi relazionali, il volume restituisce la dimensione complessa della performance come campo di produ­zione del comune.

In fiamme è costruito come un oggetto a più dimensioni e polifonico, che assembla diverse temporalità e voci di artiste/i, studiose/i, attiviste/i, muoven­dosi tra teorie e pratiche, tra scritture e materialità delle immagini. Frutto del lavoro del gruppo di ricerca di INCOMMON, è un archivio vivo di parole e gesti che si riattiva al presente, aprendo nuove traiettorie di lettura storica e insieme di teoria critica contemporanea.

Con testi di Ilenia Caleo, Piersandra Di Matteo, Annalisa Sacchi, Toni Negri, Marco Baravalle, Lorenzo Mango, Maurizio Lazzarato, Alessandro Pontremoli, Stefano Tomassini, Franco Berardi Bifo, Gianni Manzella, Lucia Farinati, Marco Solari, Francesca Corona, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Riccardo Caporossi, Kinkaleri, Giada Cipollone, Lea Melandri, Marion D’Amburgo, Viviana Gravano, Marcella Campagnano, Valeria Graziano, Silvia Bottiroli, Silvia Fanti/Xing, Stefano Brilli, Giuseppe Allegri, Enrico Pitozzi, Maria Grazia Berlangieri, Ippolita Avalli, Caterina Serra, Valentina Valentini, Nicolas Martino, Daniele Vergni, Marco Assennato, Gregory Sholette, Michele Di Stefano

Comprising a single roll of film, the photographs presented in this book capture the bespoke furniture designed by Charlotte Perriand in 1961 for use in the rooms of Building E of the United Nations complex in Geneva.

In January of 2021, in the midst of a building-wide refurbishment, Perriand’s chairs were momentarily moved off-site, where they formed the irreverent jumble depicted here.

These drawings give back the intimacy of the everyday to objects and postures which, exasperated within existing spaces, take new positions and discover new sides to themselves, giving life to a sym­phony of small theatrical pièces where stage and backstage are one and the same.

I disegni, questi disegni, nell’insita tensione del loro tratto, ci consen­tono di immaginare gli altri nel paradosso delle loro esistenze, esploso tra le pareti delle proprie abitazioni e di farci sentire meno soli, meno tristi. Immaginare gli altri e le altre, ci restituisce lo spazio del gioco, dell’assurdo, del surreale che fatichiamo a praticare mentre stiamo seduti sui nostri divani.

Silvia Jop

A miniseries on drawing
This enticing series of little books approaches drawing in its most specific acceptation, i.e. as a peremptory gesture that is gradually revealed, a tool at the service of thought and a primary form of representation. The pages feature both real and imaginary objects along with the caprices, secrets and flights of fancy of the artists involved. With all the speed and immediacy of a snack, browsing through this finger-lickin’ collection – jam-packed full of mouth-watering tasty titbits – will certainly whet your appetite. And once you try one, you will keep coming back for more.

Mini collana sul disegno
Questa serie di teneri libriccini tratta il disegno nella sua accezione più specifica, come gesto perentorio che con scioltezza rivela se stesso, strumento al servizio del pensiero, forma prima di rappresentazione. Le sue pagine contengono oggetti reali e immaginati, capricci, segreti e bizzarrie degli artisti coinvolti. Sfogliare, con la velocità e l’immediatezza di uno snack, questa raccolta gustosa, sbrodolante di succhi saporiti e mai indigesti, vi aprirà lo stomaco; possederla vi darà la certezza di non esserne mai sazi.

The research of Mariateresa Sartori revolves around three thematic fulcrums: empirical scientific method; behavioural dynamics, often in relation to neurosciences; music and sound in relation to language. Depending on the project she embarks upon, the artist uses different mediums ranging from drawing – whether for small or wall-size works – to pinhole photography, video, and sound recordings.
However, such a variety of approaches is merely apparent, and reveals the same attitude supported by recurring patterns of action. These choices enable us to grasp the polymorphous unity of a work which, through single projects and sets, investigates, confirms, and reinvents its underlying relationship to the world. Inside this book three pinhole photographic series, soberly titled Plantes, Nuages and Feuilles which Mariateresa Sartori produced in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. The small-sized works were produced in the south of France, the first two sets on the occasion of a residency at the Cassidaine Camargo Foundation2, the third during a residency at CAIRN, the art centre of Digne-les-Bains, where they were on show the same year.

Text by Riccardo Caldura, Marion Castanet, Fabien Faure, Giulia Pagnetti, Mariateresa Sartori

Fragments of posters with Pop culture icons hang from the walls. An empty kennel, a telephone receiver hanging from the antlers of a deer, a little garden dwarf: they are the shreds of a discontinuous and paradoxical narrative, lost into space and contaminated by the violence and contradictions of history.

Naturamorta is an apparently neutral title that D’Anteo actually explores in the oxymoronic dimension of its etymology, in its enigmatic and surreal suspension, in the uncanny vitalism that lies behind anything that becomes residual. In this dark and angsty scenario lies the paradox: dreams become nightmares, but from the dark zones of the nightmare emerge the traces of a (perhaps) still possible salvation.

The book reveals and explore all these aspects, through an immersive visual narration which led readers to enter the complex world of the artist himself.

We, curators Alexander Roberts and Ásgerður G. Gunnarsdóttir, have been working on a curatorial research under the title ‘Into the City, Onto the Stage’ since 2014. The central point
of enquiry has been to ask how we as curators – based in Reykjavík, Iceland – working as Artistic Directors of Reykjavík Dance Festival – can create a platform, with the performing arts at its centre, where the basic assumptions about who the performing arts are for can be fundamentally challenged and transformed. Who in our city gets to watch it, make it and have opinions on it How to cultivate and shape an institution that gathers publics through engagements with the performing arts on terms that are ardently anti-racist, pro-queer, interspecies, anti-ableist, feminist, pro-worker and decolonising? How to foster a platform that is constituted by a porous and intersectional community of listeners and learners committed to amplifying the voices, bodies, experiences and urgencies among them that are otherwise often under represented, lesser seen and lesser heard? […] We conceived of this book as a space to learn from others that have also been busy devising artistic and curatorial strategies relevant to these questions.

Alexander Roberts &
Ásgerður G. Gunnarsdóttir
Editors

Choosing Venice as the most suitable place to describe natural and social complexities, Altrove. New Fictions sets the outcomes produced by a group of scholars and artists during their residencies in the Venetian lagoon. The contributions that follow come, in fact, from crossing the stimuli proposed by Altrove Project (2018-19) and from recognizing art and its narrations as a powerful tool to reach newer and more coherent disciplinary hybridizations.

Riconoscendo Venezia come il luogo più adeguato per descrivere complessità naturali e sociali, Altrove.New Fictions raduna i risultati delle ricerche portate avanti da un gruppo di studiosi e artisti durante le loro residenze nella laguna veneziana. I contributi che seguono, infatti, derivano dagli stimoli proposti dal progetto Altrove (2018-19) e dall’aver considerato l’arte e le sue narrazioni come uno strumento potente nella creazione di nuove e più coerenti ibridazioni disciplinari.

UN is a photographic diary by Giovanna Silva guiding us through the United Nations Office headquarters in Geneva. A chat-like narration unveils spaces, thoughts, eye catching details and is overlapped by images of halls, old phone booths filled with plastic wrap, textured walls, floors and ceilings, rows of tables and chairs, either straight or curving, like rollercoasters.

“I shoot five hundred and sixty-seven photos in thirtyfive minutes. The genre is known as now or never, and it’s a fairly commonplace form of delirium in this line of work.”

The pictures, all taken with an iPhone, offer an instant and almost sneaky glimpse into the architecture and ordinary life of the building, now stripped of its inaccessible status.

#4 of Loc. Fies 1, a series by Centrale Fies

Note sugli oggetti performativi
Remarks on the performative objects

Mali Weil è una piattaforma artistica nata nel 2008. Crea performance espanse e stratificate che comprendono anche la realizzazione e diffusione di linee di design, format audiovisivi e prodotti editoriali. Mali Weil indaga le potenzialità della performance come spazio di creazione e diffusione di immaginari politici. Questo volume raccoglie e ordina le note della ricerca teorica e pratica di Mali Weil sul design di oggetti performativi.

Mali Weil is an art platform created in 2008.
It creates expanded and stratified performances which also include the implementation and dissemination of design collections, audio-visual formats and editorial products. Mali Weil explores the potentials of the performance intended as a space for the creation and dissemination of political imageries. This book is an organized collection of the remarks regarding the theorical and practical research carried out by Mail Weil on the design of performative objects.

“I was in the pool of the hotel, it’s awesome! … my gosh just what I needed and guess what? I managed to get the autograph of Chip ’n’ Dale, like, not just Chip or just Dale, both! I found them outside the hall chattering about something. I’d like to go for a ride on Dumbo’s choo-choo later and then maybe after we can finally jer ……. …………. …………………………………………………..”

“Sono stato nella piscina dell’hotel, è fantastica! … mio dio ci voleva proprio e indovina un po’? Sono riuscito ad avere l’autografo di Cip e Ciop, cioè non solo Cip o solo Ciop, tutti e due! Li ho trovati fuori dall’ingresso che confabulavano. Dopo vorrei fare un giro sul trenino di Dumbo e poi magari dopo ci facciamo una bell ……. …………. …………………………………………………..”

Valerio Nicolai

published on the occasion of the exhibition Flavio Favelli Il bello inverso, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venezia
texts by Gabriella Belli, Flavio Favelli, Antonio Grulli

“I believe one of the densest images of Venice, despite all its history and its art places, is the photo of huge letters spelling out ‘Coca Cola’ in St Mark’s Square, written in birdseed and then completed and implemented by the pigeons until its disappearance.”

“Credo che una delle immagini più dense di Venezia, sia, nonostante la sua storia passata e i suoi luoghi d’arte, la foto della grande scritta Coca Cola in piazza San Marco, degli anni Sessanta, con le grandi lettere formate dal becchime e compiuta e realizzata dai piccioni fino al suo dissolvimento.”

Flavio Favelli

#3 of Loc. Fies 1, a series by Centrale Fies

A roulotte. A tiny and portable pavilion. A bar. An ephemeral gathering place. An homage to the Fun Palace; the cult project by architect Cedric Price and theatre director Joan Littlewood that back in the 60’s wanted to realize a university of the street, a laboratory of fun. Little Fun Palace brings together artists, philosophers, economists, scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, sociologists, writers, meteorologists, teenagers exploring every aspects of realty in its diverse areas and shapes. This is a seriously spontaneous survey releasing intelligence from any cirrus of intellectualism.

Una roulotte. Un padiglione piccolo e portatile. Un bar. Un luogo effimero di aggregazione. Un omaggio al Fun Palace; il leggendario progetto dell’architetto Cedric Price e della regista teatrale Joan Littlewood che negli anni sessanta volevano realizzare un’università della strada, un laboratorio del divertimento. Little Fun Palace mette insieme artisti, filosofi, economisti, scienziati, ingegneri, architetti, sociologi, scrittori, meteorologi, adolescenti esplorando ogni sfaccettatura della realtà nelle sue diverse forme e aree di riferimento. Un’indagine seriamente spontanea che affranca l’intelligenza dai cirri dell’intellettualismo.

#2 of Loc. Fies 1, a series by Centrale Fies

On the Folds of Real by the Lens of Performative
NOTE ON TRANSLATION The texts of this publication are works with their formal and linguistic autonomy. Translations were only possible in those cases where this autonomy is not compromise

Nelle pieghe del reale attraverso la lente del performativo
NOTE SULLA TRADUZIONE I testi che troverete in questa pubblicazione sono lavori con una loro autonomia formale e linguistica. Le traduzioni sono state possibili solo in quei casi in cui questa autonomia non veniva compromessa

#1 of Loc. Fies 1, a series by Centrale Fies

Recordings from an empty country, sequences for the montage of a seductive landscape that promises the pleasure of actions on the territory, and renews the sense of “letting oneself go” in the concept of abandon.

Registrazioni da un Paese vuoto, sequenze per il montaggio di un paesaggio seducente che invita al piacere di azioni sul territorio e restituisce all’abbandono il senso di lasciarsi andare.

with a short story by Jordan Hruska

“Above all, how are we to imagine a relation between a thing and its image, between matter and thought, since each of these terms possesses, by definition, only that which is lacking to the other?”

Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory

texts by Lucia Amara, Joe Kelleher, Anastasio Koukoutas

All for All! is a trip through All! (2012-2017), a project conceived by Kinkaleri and instigated by the voracious attacks on language committed by William Seward Burroughs. It intentionally strays beyond the limits of theatre and dance, suggesting an outside and setting the possible into motion along an undecidable boundary between the body and language.

“This book is a testament against the immaculately quaffed cunts who live their lives on social media networks hoping to score big points because they manipulated the perfect lie via filters and apps, that ape artifice and exaggeration. It is a much needed example of the down and dirty, the all to real, the in your face – fuck you – to false standards of an unattainable beauty that is based on bullshit and deceit that dominates Western culture and acts as just another consumer con, preaching conformity and product placement as it tries desperately to erase the individual.”

Lydia Lunch

#7 of Carte blanche, a series edited by Sara Marini, Alberto Bertagna
illustrations by Riccardo Miotto | photographs by Sissi Cesira Roselli

There is an area between Venezia and Venice, between the reality and the logo, between the city and its brand. In this middle-earth conflicts rise frequently like fumes, clashes between truths and promises. In this space the imagination finds the humus needed to manifest itself. Here the two cities face off, mingle, declare war on a daily basis, they exchange the meaning of things and words. Only the stranger who lives in Venezia, remaining a stranger, can see this limbo; only by looking at Venezia in Venice and living the two dimensions with detachment can one understand The Possibility of an Island.

published on the occasion of the exhibition Natura quasi trasparente, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia

“With a few simple elements Di Maggio reflects, and makes us reflect, on profound concepts such as nature and time, and she does so through the instability and equilibrium of a work which, being alive, requires constant care, ministering and attention to halt its inexorable decay. Elisabetta plays with a clear contrast between different times: that of real life – an ephemeral, precarious and changeable time – which vibrates in the fragile ivy leaves; and that of fiction, the eternal time of the stuccos; plant simulacrums that the real plants intertwine with to weave new trails. […] The natural beauty that resides in this ephemeral balance between life and death is what Elisabetta, aware of its fragility and unpredictability, tries to pinpoint with her complex and discrete art.”

“Con pochi e semplici elementi Di Maggio riflette, e ci fa riflettere, su concetti densi come quelli della natura e del tempo, e lo fa attraverso l’instabilità e l’equilibrio di un’opera che, essendo viva, necessita di una cura costante, di accudimento e attenzione, per rallentarne l’inesorabile decadenza. Elisabetta gioca con un contrasto evidente tra tempi diversi: quello della vita reale – un tempo effimero, precario, mutevole – che vibra nelle fragili foglie di edera; e quello della finzione, il tempo eterno degli stucchi, simulacri vegetali cui le piante vere s’intrecciano, intessendo nuovi percorsi. […] In questo effimero equilibrio tra vita e morte risiede quella bellezza naturale che l’arte complessa e discreta di Elisabetta tenta di fissare, consapevole della sua fragilità e contingenza.”

Chiara Bertola

published on the occasion of the exhibition Senza titolo, invisibile, dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più, mentre oltremare appare verso Sud-Est, e la luce focalizza…, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia

“Senza titolo, invisibile, dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più, mentre oltremare appare verso Sud-Est, e la luce focalizza… As is often the case with the works of Giovanni Anselmo, the lengthy title of the Venice exhibition is a long sequence, almost a short story, which describes the works we encounter. Above all, however, it is a succession of landscapes that open onto our imagination like windows. […] In all of his works Anselmo shows how everything is transformed, renewed and completed in relation to the environment they are in; as Germano Celant writes, the works become ‘solitary wayfarers which adapt to the environmental metamorphoses to the extent that they absorb the humours and the humus’”

“Senza titolo, invisibile, dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più, mentre oltremare appare verso Sud-Est, e la luce focalizza… Il titolo esteso dell’esposizione di Venezia, come molto spesso accade negli interventi di Giovanni Anselmo, è una lunga sequenza, quasi un piccolo racconto che descrive le opere che s’incontreranno. Soprattutto, però, è una successione di paesaggi che, come finestre, si aprono alla nostra immaginazione. […] In ogni suo lavoro Anselmo mostra come ogni cosa si trasformi, si rinnovi e si completi in relazione con l’ambiente in cui si trova a essere; perché le opere diventano, come ha scritto Germano Celant, ‘viandanti solitari che si adattano alle metamorfosi ambientali, tanto da assorbirne gli umori e l’humus.’”

Chiara Bertola