Download Catalogue - Paola Anziché

lized, an intensity where the body and, in this
case, the object, still retain traces of their previous
and next movement. A pause, therefore, not
static and quiet but charged with both memory
and dynamic energy.
In the work of Anziché, this image of suspended
tension is emphasized, and made physical by
the interaction between the dancers’ body and
the reticular structure. The underlying notion is
that of elastic energy, which accumulates by successive
movements, and is then freed thanks to
the act of releasing – yet in the pause between
one movement and the next there is no stillness,
but a creation of strong energy, potential energy,
intensity. It seems to me that the same reading
key could be applied to the carpets that are exhibited
in sculptural compositions, Tapis-accroché,
Origami-tapis and Tapis-à-porter (all 2009).
The definite shape they take in this case is not
final, but alludes to a potential change, recalling
past performances and envisaging the possibility
of further developments. These are dialectical images,
to use Benjamin’s terminology – images that
contain a tension between past and present.
Benjamin wrote that both thought movement
and thought suspension are qualities pertaining
to thought. The dialectical image, for Benjamin,
appears where thoughts halt, in a constellation
saturated with tensions. It is an interruption, a
caesura in the movement of thought. Of course
its dwelling place is no ordinary place: Benjamin
says that you have to search for it, in a word, go
where the tension between dialectical opposites
reaches a peak. 3
This notion of temporality as becoming, as a
dialectical tension between past and present,
condensed in the present act, refers us back
again to Lygia Clark’s research. To her Paola
Anziché has dedicated Indagando, a work-inprogress
project. The artist has started to interview
former students of Clark’s, who taught at
the Sorbonne in Paris during the 70s. In these
university courses, structured as workshops,
the artist developed the propositions that characterize
the last stage of her æsthetic evolution
and that she called Fantasmática do corpo or
Corpo-coletivo. And it is precisely this memory
that Anziché is trying to rescue – the memory
of an experience, of actively participating in an
act of creation, of unleashing, through collective
Greater Torino :
actions that involve the body, those unconscious
fantasies we call ghosts. Yet the ghosts are also,
as we mentioned above, images charged with
both past and future, condensed in one present
moment, just like Anziché’s work. For, while it reevokes
the memories of those who participated
in Lygia Clark’s actions, it simultaneously rescues
and restores to our present time an æsthetic
project that still retains its full potential.
Paolo Piscitelli
What I learnt about myself when I left Torino
was the ability to discover myself anew as a
multi-disciplinary artist. But I also found myself
in the condition of an immigrant, and this brought
new, compulsory needs that had to be satisfied.
Among them, I have a sincere curiosity for the
people around me, the desire to know where they
come from, although, to tell the truth, I almost
never see anyone.
In 2006 I moved to Texas for an artist - inresidence
stay. Here, too, from the Deep South
of America, I could breathe the American dream
and, shortly after, witness the election of the first
black president in American history. At the same
time, the banking, financial and real economy crisis
was starting to get hold of the country.
I found myself involved, both concretely and
abstractly, emotionally and intellectually, in the
world around me. Several relatives and acquaintances
of mine have lost their jobs, many small
businesses have closed down, others are opening,
conquering a horizontal space that seems to
have no end.
This individual, collective and, I would say, global
transformation led me to connect my æsthetic
vision to aspect of economy and politics, and to
the symbols of everyday life.
Paolo Piscitelli
second intentions
Maria Teresa Roberto
Repeatedly, between 2000 and 2005, Paolo
Piscitelli chose the expression ‘second intention’
as a title for his works, and after the first occurrence
added the subtitles: ‘pink volume’, ‘white
3.
Walter Benjamin, Paris Capital of the
XIX Century. The Arcades Project.
Edited by R. Tiedemann, translated by
Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin.
Harvard, 1999, fr. 2a, 4
english text