Download Catalogue - Paola Anziché

dressed in special t-shirts designed by the artist,
fitted with pockets on different parts of the
body and containing fruit. These t-shirts generate
sculptural hybrids, in which body, synthetic
object and organic material blend, prompting a
reflection on the interdependence between the
self and the outside world. This extends to the
relationship with other people as soon as the art
mediators offer the fruit to the visitors, who are
free to accept it, eat it immediately, or take it with
them, away from the exhibition space.
While the relationship between the spectator
and the object apparently exists as a spatial experience,
the most relevant aspect to take into
account is actually the temporal level, the way
time-matter, in this case, becomes a means of expression.
In Spaziando, the object gets activated
the moment it is perceived/experienced, and not
only does it immediately change, but also bears
the traces of its subsequent interactions with the
spectators, registering them through a gradual
transformation of its own structure, substance
and color nuancing, giving a sculptural shape to
the passing of the exhibiting time. Therefore, just
as works can only exist in the act of their perception,
there can be no original, or earliest version
of a work, which lives in this very flow, in the happening
of its own metamorphosis.
The idea of metamorphosis is also central to
the carpet-work series. These take on a different
shape and identity depending on the context they
are placed into and the way they are presented.
The very fabric they are made of, the traditional
pezzotti, carpet scraps woven together from
rags, evokes an idea of fleetingness, because it
is the product of recycling, and because the pezzotti
were once used by nomadic shepherds. The
pezzotti consist of multi-colored, tough stripes,
and their main quality is mechanic resistance, i.e.
they easily retain their shape. The artist creates
her tapis, or carpets, by sewing together a certain
number of pezzotti, and the resulting carpets
have of course varying shapes and proportions.
The tapis, however, are not yet finished – they are
waiting to be experienced, used and manipulated
in order to acquire a specific, if only temporary,
structure. This is how the artist came to the
live performance entitled Tapis-à-porter (2009),
where the carpet turns into a garment, ‘worn’ by
performers and repeatedly changing its configu-
ration as a result of the interaction with the human
body. Object and body thus engage in a signifying
dialog that generates forms and meanings, a
dialog in which neither term can exist outside its
relationship with the other.
A specific aspect of the performance is choreography.
Anziché often introduces dancers
who interact with her works, not in an immediate
manner, but following a highly detailed, rigid
script based on a conscious, structured practice
of movement. At the preparation stage for the
performance the artist works with dancers to
create figures, i.e. to construct specific formal
relationships between body and object, a process
documented by the video Tapis-à-porter, also
on exhibit. These figures are a central issue in the
work of Anziché, especially as they relate to the
temporal dimension, i.e. they are the product of
an impeded, blocked movement – like frames of a
potential film development, suspended images extracted
from a flow of motion and time. The work
entitled Functional Fake Objects (2007) casts a
revealing light on this. Anziché’s complex project
originated from a photo series, which subsequently
gave life to a choreographed performance.
While photography usually serves as an
aide-mémoire, a trace, a document that records
what happens during a performance, Anziché
subverts this process and re-starts the moment
frozen in the photographic image.
This procedure may emerge more clearly in
the work Paesaggi istantanei, 2009. The performance,
created in collaboration with the Esperia
dance company, involved dancers who interacted
with the rubber net of Aggrovigliamenti. The artist
contrived a special choreography, based on
photo shots taken during rehearsals. The performance
starts from a static position and ends
in another, equally static, situation. Movement
is functional to the creation of the figures in a
sort of tableau vivant. The work evokes to our
minds the image of the ‘danza per phantasmata’,
the phantom dance, theorized by the XIV century
Italian choreographer Domenico da Piacenza,
and analyzed by Giorgio Agamben in his essay on
Aby Warburg. 2 What Domenico calls phantom is
an abrupt stop in between two movements, such
that the resulting inner tension produces a virtual
crunch in the measure and memory of the whole
choreographic series. The halt is time crystal-
2.
Giorgio Agamben,
“Nymphae”,
Aut Aut, May - August 2004
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