The use of needle and thread stands apart from psychological or typological dynamics, and from divisions between art and handicraft, aesthetic objects and those of daily use: it is as though they were paint and canvas or, rather, the means for weaving together while at the same time dissolving architecture, places, and spatial worlds.
But then, how should we look at works made from a network of knots and embroidery, as in the case of the four artists in the present show? They are not interested in the traditions of handicraft or of handiwork in itself but, instead, they draw together the threads of secret constructions to create a vision which constitutes a completely new linguistic form rather than some memory of classical feminine manual ability.
To use knots and threads that are woven together means eliminating form and transforming it into process. The idea is that of a threshold, of something to be crossed, of discontinuity within a canvas or web. Knots ask questions without offering answers: it is like Blind Man’s Buff where the eyes are blindfolded and searching and finding is left to the hands. Knots and their errors lead to a possible new world inhabited by trial and error.
Letizia Cariello (Ferrara, 1964) builds her room from everyday objects but intervenes on them with almost ritual gestures to both protect and personalise things. From perforations and weaving Arthur Duff (Vicenza, 1973) creates a topos of interwoven texts to create a multiple network of relationships. Laura Marchetti (Verona 1965) sews together fragments of daily life. Her perforations dematerialise the support to the point of a landscape of emptiness. Davide Nido (Senago, 1966) combines threads and voids into dangerous and mysterious networks. His is a fisherman’s net of thoughts and the spaces between them.
