STEPS
curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
Certosa di San Lorenzo
Padula (Sa), 2003
THE INSTALLATION
This installation marks the origin of a series which, from this incarnation onwards, always takes the same title, ‘passi’ (‘footsteps’), followed by the site of the work. This installation takes its starting point from imagining the walk which a monk residing at the abbey would have taken everyday from his apartment to reach the private altar, which occupies a small chapel at the end of the semi-external corridor. I imagine this path as a progressive loss of personal identity, as the disappearance of the body as it melts into place. A progressive loss of oneself occurs through a space made ‘Byzantine’ by an irregular mosaic of broken mirror on the floor, which leads to the private space of the altar which, from afar, appears to be a painting of monochrome red – only as we get closer to it does the altar reveal its spatial and tridimensional qualities.
As we get closer, we realise that the light filling the space (and not the unitary painting perceived earlier) emanates from a red square painted on the altar, the colour of which reverberates on its surrounding environment.
THE ARTWORK
In this version, a safety mirror is fixed to the floor with two-sided tape as if it were carpet – the floor had recently been restored and was hence perfectly flat, so as to give the impression that the mirror was an integral part of the flooring itself. As such, the experience of this walk is very ‘solid’, it makes no sound, it doesn’t even make us think that we are walking on a fragile surface (and in fact, it isn’t fragile at all). The resulting impression is that of walking on an image – although it is a broken image – which stuns us like a kiss.
PHOTOS: STUDIO BLU
