Tapestry / Fulfilling life that lives. Performance by Claudia Losi

A conversation with Alice Benessia and Mauro Sargiani

6 June 2023, 6 pm
Arena Paolini
Free admission

Speakers:

Luisa Papotti, President of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT
Elena Volpato, Keeper and Curator GAM

GAM is happy to host Arazzo. Esaudire la vita che vive  (Tapestry. Fulfilling life that lives), a meeting with Claudia Losi whose work Arazzo has been acquired by the Fondazione per l'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea - CRT for the collections of the GAM in Turin.

Arazzo takes the form of a large embroidery made of wool threads on a cotton fabric. Started by Losi in 1995, since then, in line with a non-pre-established temporal order, and in private and public contexts, it continues to grow: like lichens on a rocky surface that expand, touch, overlap and die, so the embroidery stitches are added to the previous stitches, changing over time.

The conception of the work thus envisages a slow evolution over the years, as happens in nature. The presence of Arazzo in the collection of the GAM in Turin is the result of its recent acquisition by the Fondazione per l'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea - CRT and represents a declaration of intent. Acquiring a work in progress, which does not respond to a predetermined development project, means not only wishing to take care of it, but also wishing to welcomethe rhythm of seasonal cycles within the historical time of art and the liminal time of the museum, along with the conceptual possibility that artworks, even within institutional walls, can change and grow, like living beings, like thoughts, accompanying the path of the artist and of the collections that receive them.

Every year, the GAM intends to create an opportunity for Claudia Losi to "present herself at an appointment", giving her the chance to give new form and development to the surface-landscape of Arazzo.

At each appointment, a number of guests will be invited to talk about themes that relate in some way, by proximity or analogy, with the nature of Losi's work, according to their own personal practices and sensitivity. The course of these conversations will proceed in parallel with the growth of the tapestry.

The title of the first conversation is Esaudire la vita che vive (Fulfilling life that lives): to welcome, to listen, paying the utmost attention to life as it unfolds in its business of living, with the desire to rely on words that arise to respect and return this perpetual motion.

For this first appointment, the guests invited are Alice Benessia (theoretical physicist, philosopher of science and artist) and Mauro Sargiani (writer and designer artist). Like the profiles of lichens, the boundaries of their conversation will be nomadic, moving and tracing topographies that seek to fulfil their destiny.

Claudia Losi starts from an observation of the relationships that exist between the individual and the community to which she belongs, with the mineral-animal-vegetal ecosystem she shares, with the collective imagination with which she identifies. She realises multi-disciplinary projects that are also developed over long periods of time, activating different forms of collaboration (through walking, manual work and choral singing), networking and weaving stories. She works with different media, including site-specific installations and performances, sculpture, photography, textile works and works on paper. She has exhibited her works in numerous institutions in Italy and abroad.
In 2021, she published The Whale Theory. Un immaginario animalewith Johan&Levi, and Voce a vento with Kunstverein Milan. In 2022 she published Being There. Oltre il giardino, Viaindustriae, Foligno.

Alice Benessia. With a hybrid background in visual arts, theoretical physics and philosophy of science – and an urban past of academic research and artistic practice – in 2017 she founded Pianpicollo Selvatico, a small rural research centre on the border between art, deep ecology and interspecific coexistence, in a remote valley in southern Piedmont. Pianpicollo Selvatico is now her home, a place of research and daily practice.

Mauro Sargiani is a writer who designs and makes wooden furniture under the name Elefante Rosso Produzioni. Writing continues to govern the design and shape of his tables, a discipline practised in tribute to his masters, Gianni Celati and Piergiorgio Bellocchio.