If the carpet as a “limited fraction of space” seems
central to this work by Paola Anziché, it is because, as she
explains, it acts as a “physical metaphor for an idea of territory,
as well of travel, transition and nomadism. It can be
worn; it can be used as a shelter as well as a temporary
lightweight construction”. At the same time, however, Paola
Anziché’s search for environmental unity between objects,
bodily gestures, choreographed actions, movement, thought,
unexpected figures and sculptural installations seems more
concerned with the energy produced by the group action – as it
develops – than with the aesthetic results. The work requires
bodily participation and, as well as clothing the body, it asks
it to move and dance. As they “wear” the work, put it on, enter
into it, pass through it, dance and walk, the dancers’ bodies
unleash the expressive potential of its structure, which rejects
a permanent form, one that is fixed forever in an unmovable
state that allows no change.
In Anziché’s work, the relationship with objects is the focus
from which the movement of the work spreads and defines the
formal field of action, which Francesca Pasini, curator of the
performance, identifies as the “formal scenario”, a play of references
between textile, text and roof. According to Pasini, “In
the Tapis-à-porter performance, the object taken as the text
has values that contain a special architectural concept. The
carpet in itself is a metaphor for a text in which weft and warp
create a weave (textum), whose tectum variant acquires the
meaning of roof. The textual
and architectural constructions
are linked by a metaphor
for human living, made
of words, thoughts, houses,
ground and sky. On one hand
the carpet is ornament, and
on the other it is protection,
just like the words that come
together in a text, the threads
that form the weft and warp,
the beams and tiles employed
to build a roof.”
In order to investigate the carpet’s ability to “act” or
to trigger action, Anziché initially created Tapis Accroché. It
can be described as a preparatory work because its figurative
force (the work comes together as a series of photographs)
seems to have served as a starting point from which
to bring into focus the potential of an object selected for its
power as a “device for interaction”.
In previous works, such as the Functional Fake objects
(2007), Flash Out (2008), White wooden chair (2006), the
close relationship with objects had already become the point
of engagement with the overlapping of meanings and relations
belonging to two generally separate areas of expression
(design and the bodily expression contained in dancing). The
dialogue between body and objects does not play by the rules:
unpredictable and incidental, it unleashes energy.
Anziché might make reference, among other things, to
Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolé (not so much a work as a “place
where the artistic experience is based”), his Penetráveis, or
Lygia Clark’s work, her roupa-corpo-roupa series (which,
back in 1967, Pierre Restany described in Domus as “sensorial
objects”, “garments with multiple pockets, suits worn by two
people with tactile areas, intended for alternate contact – an
‘active’ communication method based on gestures…”), or the
work of Tobias Rehberger (who was one of her teachers at the
Städelschule in Frankfurt). But whatever the case, it is as if it
were only via movement (and the choreographed actions that
constitute its grammar) that Anziché manages to follow the
train of thought because, as Rebecca Solnit pointed out in her
Wanderlust. A History of Walking, “The motions of the mind
cannot be traced, but those of the feet can.” Similarly, the
flow of thought is expressed in movement (just as the rhythm
of walking generates a sort of rhythm of thought). This occurs,
for instance, in the walking action when “the mind, the body
and the world” are aligned as if they were “three characters
finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making
a chord”, because “walking allows us to be in our bodies and in
the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to
think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.”
Tapis-à-porter
The vision of an organic architecture in the artistic research of Paola Anziché. Design Paola Anziché. Text Francesca Picchi. Photos Paola Anziché, Endstart.
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- 26 March 2009