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italian
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FILO
FORME anno 4 n. 11
PRESENTATION
Stefanella Sposito
In this issue of Filoforme we wanted to put forth some initial ideas and
elements reflecting on what it means to “deal with fabric” today. Over
the past decades we have seen the growth and expansion of artists who
have chosen to work with fibre art as the means that best expresses
their individual language. Whether we are dealing with woven threads,
layers of felt, manipulated textiles or applied sequins, giving the
material a “form”, shaping and changing it, is still an expressive
exigency in our contemporary world. At the same time, the confines of
artistic media have become less defined and more controversial, and the
artist has seen his or her own territory expand. Some truly interesting
cross-current themes have emerged: emigration as a social problem and
the psychology of identity search, the existential condition of women,
the metamorphoses and changes in cities, human thought and outlook, new
materials and their relation to art, the contamination of means of
expression. Artists perceived and identified all these themes, they
interpreted them and made them part of their work and lives. We have
focussed our magnifying glass on these constantly changing areas. We
have decided to examine and discuss them on a broader level, at times by
means of an interview, with direct testimony from the protagonists
themselves.
Lucia Feining-Giesinger, uses her great sensitivity in sharing with us
the results that have emerged from the “waiting-time” of some Bosnian
women refugees. The artist contributes by giving a constructive meaning
to hope, injecting life into the stitched “Time” of the Bosna-Quilt. The
construction of an object becomes therapy helping to retain a sense of
self-identity and to plan a future, while the art, as Paola Jori states,
becomes “the practice of the nomadic intelligence” and “the exercise of
a critical activity”.
The same theme is intimately developed using a cinematographic medium in
SEQUINS (Brodeuses). This splendid film is situated in provincial
France, and uses embroidery as a metaphor for life. The emphasis is on
the gestural aspects of the creative act and the passage of time while
working Just as for this article, the other two pieces by Ester Prestini
suggest a moment of reflection based on her encounters with a weaver
during a trip in Tunisia, and from the theatrical analysis of “Telai”
(Looms). The author gathers together the basic essence of the silent
narration, “about putting order to the world by entwining threads
together”. It is not by chance that cinema and theatre speak to us today
about looms when focussing on aspects of femininity and its constant
evolution. The work by Martha Nieuwenhuijs uses the idea of the
Metamorphosis of events, directly comparing the historical past and the
immediate present. These evolutions and changes involve art in parallel
with philology, architecture, music and philosophy; they imply a
cross-contamination and “a lucid, almost photographic gaze on changing
reality, a metaphorical capacity in seeing”…and in discovering. Again,
we find various references to the story as an art form: from the
classics such as Apuleius and Ovid, to modern authors like Kafka,
concluding with the formula of the book/sculpture. “Artists have chosen
to rethink the book as an object in the aesthetic sense... for the
artists this bond between thought, symbol and painting is a fairly
natural expression…”
The attention to new materials has roots that are multi-material and
mutant, and they allude to a metamorphosis that is constantly evolving.
In this context we find the works in plastic and sequins, more or less
conscious heirs to the sequins first used in Futurist paintings that
with their iridescent, shimmering “pointillisme” project new light on
contemporary art.
With the use of new technologies, are we perhaps living at the dawn of a
virtual era, an era that pushes us into universes expanded by what is
possible and imaginable, where the contaminations, the references and
the convergencies follow and chase one another, and where the
differences and peculiarities are hightened and contradicted? Is it a
new eclecticism where historical memory and actuality co-exist, or is it
de-constructivism where the concepts of far and near, of large and small
redefine their proportional relationships using new categories?
BOSNA
QUILT-STITCHED TIME
Stefanella Sposito (page 3)
In November 2004, the gallery Studio G7 presented 'Bosna Quilt-Stitched
Time', an exhibition of collectively conceived and created works of both
social-anthropological and artistic interest curated by Paola Juri. The
basis of this project is 'Bosna Quilt Werkstatt', a unique artistic
fusion combining the collaborative efforts and experiences of women
motivated by very different sensitivities and cultures. Behind this
initiative are Austrian painter, Lucia Feinig-Giesinger, and a small
community of Bosnian women, who fled from their country in 1993 to a war
refugee camp in Verarlberg, Austria. The artistic atelier was begun in
the Caritas Galina refugee camp, becoming a permanent work project. When
the war ended in 1998 the enclave transferred to the city of Gorzade on
the Drina River. The works on exhibition are one-of-a-kind pieces, made
by assembling layers of fabric together and stitched by hand. They are
large geometric fields of colour and the contrasts are accentuated by
the intermittent movement of the thread used for the quilting that
traces 'invisible designs' on the entire surface. The shapes are varied
and can be made-to-order.
HANDING DOWN
Ester Prestini (page 7)
During a visit to Tunisia, Ester Prestini meets a weaver and remains
transfixed by the woman's ability as she reproduces an image of the tree
of life. The author observes the quick hand that 'uses an alphabet of
ancient symbols that are timeless', grasping the profound meaning of
that silent narrative. The 'mysterious way the women recount, and give
order to the world by entwining the yarns' is the inspiration for
reflection. The narrow space of a small laboratory, the designs for
carpets and tapestries, blankets, garments or tablecloths appear as
variegated pictograms that recall the secret of 'nature weaving the
thread of life'. 'Codices to decipher… traces of the bond that unites
every new generation to its previous one and to the generation to
follow'.
TELAI
Ester Prestini (page 8)
Laura Curino's most recent production is entitled 'Telai' (Looms). She
uses the stage as a narration of lives actually lived, the narration of
personal and collective memories. The continuous thread in this
theatrical text is a loom. Each of her unique stories comes from the
extraordinary archives of northeast Italy; stories of ten women living
between Schio and Venice from the 1600s to the early 1900s. Times,
places, characters, intimacies, all tied to the socio-economic and
political co-ordinates of each historical period are set around the
tools of the trade: the skein-winder, the needle, the lace pillow, the
spool. One of the elements in the scenography is fundamental to the
narration: a rectangular piece of lightweight fabric, which in each
phase and time period, mutates into the virginal wimple of the nun, the
hesitant veil of the bride, a shawl, a hood, a coverall…into the garment
that exemplifies the absolute uniqueness of every existence.
SEQUINS
(Brodeuses)
Ester Prestini (page 9)
The stark beauty of director Eleanore Faucher's film language speaks to
us about embroiderers. A story of women of today, not lost in the
twilight of a more or less recent past, whose paths cross in a space
characterised by painful solitude. Claire, a young worker temporarily
employed in a supermarket, and Mrs Melikian, a collaborator in the
Embroidery Atelier run by François Lesage in Paris, meet as a result of
Claire's stubbornness. Their meeting takes place on the extraordinary
and impervious terrain of the experience of maternity, creation in its
original form, creation where the act of embroidering is a metaphor and
a universal analogy.
Metamorphoses
of Martha Nieuwenhuijs
Stefanella Sposito (page 10)
Taking our lead from a conference-exhibition held in Collegno (Turin) in
June 2004, we have opened our dialogue with Martha Nieuwenhuijs,
cosmopolitan artist who conceived the event. The theme of METAMORPHOSES
brought together diverse exponents of philology, architecture, music,
art and philosophy. In a world where change is ever more rapid and
uncontrollable, the theme of metamorphoses recalls evolutions and
transformations putting the historical past in direct comparison with
the immediate present. By means of the artist's words even her works
come alive: Chaos, The Foreigner, The Village, the Return, inspired by
the events of September 11th from the point of view of the news
correspondent and the image of the emigrant; There was no Moon, Ponte
Dora, The Old Factory are instead inspired by the old industrial
districts of Turin. All Martha Nieuwenhuijs's work is characterised by a
lucid, almost photographic gaze on the changing world, a metamorphic
capacity to 'see'…and to discover. The artist is also attentive to what
she believes to be the essential metamorphoses of material and its
manipulations. For many years, she has been interested in ancient weaves
for experimenting different textures. Today she is attracted by
technological materials such as fibreglass, non-woven textiles in
polyester, the plotter print on fabric.
SEQUINED ART
Stefanella Sposito (page 14)
Sequins are cut from thin sheets of polyester or acetate; those
brilliant, shiny disks of plastic that are often integral to all seasons
of dresses and fashion accessories. In the past they were called
'spangles' and gave lustre and beauty to those who wore them. Their use
is less common in the art world, however, in 1912 with the emergence of
Futurism in Italy, they are added as material extraneous to the paint,
able to break-up the unity of the plane, adding multiple visual elements
while at the same time contributing to the bi-dimensional aspect of the
canvas. As the use of plastic materials increased, artists and engineers
felt the need to measure themselves against the 'symbolic material' of
the technological evolution. An element that is part of the textile
world becomes part of the compositional language of a painting. In the
article, works made entirely with sequins, or partially composed with
this material, are illustrated. They are part of the artistic works of
artists such as Gino Severini, Enrico Bay, Francesco Vezzoli, Maria
Amalia Cangiano and Andrea Martini.
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