Moltitudini

In the context of the IDENTITY program – developed by Artissima with the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo — Artissima presents Moltitudini, an original contamination in which the poet Laura Accerboni comes to terms with visual art along a path of research, interpretation and hybridization of languages. A poet-in-residence who opens her practice to a dimension of perception and listening in contemporary art, entering a relationship of interaction with six artists operating in Turin: Guglielmo Castelli, Sara Enrico, Giorgio Griffa, Tom Johnson, Marzia Migliora and Laura Pugno.

Through a series of encounters (described in more detail below), the residency provides an overview of the visions of artists who have chosen Turin as a place for living and working, reflecting the renewed artistic vitality and international appeal of the city. The dialogue between Accerboni and the artists has developed in a free and spontaneous way, against the thematic background of the upcoming edition of the fair, where once again fancy offers Artissima the liberty required for interdisciplinary acrobatics.

The residency is also a central focus of the second edition of Mondi Possibili: Dialogues between art and literature, the program of encounters in collaboration with Fondazione Circolo dei lettori. The Circolo dei lettori e delle lettrici of Turin and Artissima will host two encounters in October – one at the Circolo prior to the fair and one at the fair’s Meeting Point – in which Accerboni will interact with the artists involved in the project, conveying the process of the residency to the public:

October 21, 6:30 PM — Circolo dei lettori e delle lettrici
Laura Accerboni in conversation with Guglielmo Castelli, Sara Enrico, and Marzia Migliora

October 31, 6:30 PM — Artissima Meeting Point
Laura Accerboni in conversation with Giorgio Griffa, Tom Johnson, and Laura Pugno

THE ENCOUNTERS

Laura Pugno

Philtrum: The groove on the upper lip. The American poet Taije Silverman says it was an angel who created it on our bodies, when about to exit the womb - they leave an imprint with a finger that suppresses knowledge and breaks the relation with each element.
Before we are born we know everything: "the sound of mollusks/ (...) how the color blue was made (...) each dream of death and its fish shape, its lopped/ (...) the shy longings of salamanders (...) the symphonies that turtles heard."
Then nothing more. There is no regret - we can be sorry and not sorry - there is no "Wait", uttered "in that language an angel understands."
I often asked myself why Laura Pugno's work makes me think of this story. It is as if I was in front of a face while the finger nears but does not accomplish the gesture entirely.

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Giorgio Griffa

Unlost. "That which remains when all is forgotten (...) that which survives when the rest is lost".
Griffa's work and words create a reflection of immersion when in contact with this term, and there is no longer the fear of going down and not being able to come up. Suddenly the whole body recognises the signs and remembers what it could do, the movement of what "shall not be reft (from them)".

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Marzia Migliora

I experienced Migliora's work as an underwater phone you inevitably grip if you come across it. There is no other way. The reason we are there is not important, somehow we ended up in the deep. When we grab it we have no idea whom we could call, but it lasts only an instant. A multitude of voices talk to us and our tongue fits perfectly into it. The underwater phone is home to the voices. Beings of all kinds and shapes.

Marzia Migliora succeeds in having the power and potential of that "them" surfaced, to whom - as soon as the word is pronounced - space, dignity, and reason are negated.

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Sara Enrico

I would like to have a body like this.
A darkness and a light illuminating the order of the gaze while erasing it.
A body merely resembling a body.
To which there is no need to name each part, nor to seek the weight in order to explain them. Lying on the ground, whole and in bits, I would make the area as I move.
It would be such a great love.

At the end of our meeting, Sara Enrico and I went outside on her studio's balcony facing the dam. A dam was indeed what I dreamed of the night before: water on one side, less water on the other, and concrete in between.

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Guglielmo Castelli

Durante l'incontro, Guglielmo Castelli mi dona uno dei suoi cataloghi: “Improving songs for anxious children”. Dice che le pagine sono attaccate per coinvolgere anche il fruitore nel gioco: dovrà — per leggerle e guardarle — separarle l'una dall'altra.
Così ora mi ritrovo con un coltello in mano, cercando un lato da spalancare.
Spalancare, mi ripeto, non rompere. Ma poi vedo lo spazio “della spietatezza e della salvezza” coincidere: il gioco, se vero — dice Castelli — spezza, scompone e riassembla.

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* Text in italian

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Artissima is Italy’s most important contemporary art fair. Since its establishment in 1994, it has combined the presence of an international market with a focus on experimentation and research.