HIMMEL MOND UND STERNE

The topic I am focusing my research and experiments on was already the subject of my master's thesis, which I had the opportunity to present in Naples at the Accademia di Belle Arti Napoli in the summer of 2023.

‘Tra corpo e immagine - la lesena la piega’ lies thematically between architecture and the visual arts. It deals with the architectural wall element “pilaster” and the philosophical concept of ‘fold’.

Using artistic freedom to examine the architectural body of the ‘pilaster’ opens up a spectrum of immense size.

‘This power that I question, that I can invoke, that part of me that is familiar to me through the lure of imagination: the power of desire or, to be more precise (since this is about research): the figure of the phantasm.’ 2

The origin of this research lies in my fascination with material/materiality in architectural dimensions that are exposed to time and weather. I am moved by material, its history, its life and the time sedimented within it.

The wall element ‘pilaster’ has interested me as an object for several years. I interpret it, like a monument, as an object between art and architecture, which oscillates between image and body due to its form (relief body). It plays with light and raises the questions: ‘What or when is something an image – when is something a body?’ This is a discourse that can be interpreted and negotiated in many ways in architecture as well as in art (especially in the history of sculpture).

Alberto Calderoni (architect) writes:

«Il pilastro è l’elemento del codice tipico del linguaggio architettura [...]. Vista la sua capacità comunicatica e formale – di essere allo stesso tempo elemento sottile ma mnemonicamente legato ad un‘idea atavica di protezione (attraverso il suo essere sezione minima di muro ovvero legato all‘immagine della parete rocciosa della caverna) – il pilastro è strutturalmente condizione necessaria per l‘esostenza di una trave, ovvero per la costruzione di un telaio ». 3

In my thesis ‘Tra corpo e immagine - la lesena la piega’ (Between Body and Image - The Lesena and the Fold), I have developed theoretical approaches that begin to emerge physically (visually) in assembled objects through sub-elements, and the connection with diversity becomes legible under the term ‘fold’.

I seek discourse with the philosophical thoughts and theories of Leibniz and Deleuze, as well as in references to art (land art) such as Robert Smithson's Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan (1969) or Masaccio's Renaissance fresco of the Holy Trinity.

«[...] come una parola non suscita mai una sola immagine, ma l‘immagine di un immagine di un immagine, cosi un oggetto comunica all‘uomo prima di tutto la sua esistenza, e, attraverso un‘infinita catena di messaggi, continua a comunicare a differenti livelli di profondità informazioni circa il suo essere ». 4

«If you visit the sites (a doubtful probability) you find nothing but memorytraces, for the mirror displacements were dismantled right after they were photographed. The mirrors are somewhere in New York. The reflected light has been erased. Remembrances are but numbers on a map, vacant memories constellating the intangible terrains in deleted vicinities. It is the dimension of absence that remains to be found. The expunged color that remains to be seen. The fictive voices of the totems have exhausted their arguments. Yucatan is elsewhere». 5

My research can and should serve as inspiration and criticism for my future contributions to culture and construction. Urban space is the main source of reference for my artistic practice and reflection, and as Calderoni writes, the pilaster is a pillar of architectural history that has a decisive influence on the reading and structuring of urban space. With Robert Smithson's reference to Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan, 1969, I pay homage to the invisible presence that is important to every urban space, to every sense of magic and beauty. With Barthes, I substantiate my artistic freedom.

2 Roland Barthes, Wie zusammen leben, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2011, p. 39.

3 Alberto Calderoni, Appunti dal visibile, capitolo Il linguaggio e l’architettura, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2016, p.118

4 Alberto Calderoni, Appunti dal visibile, citato una congettura di Roland Barthes tratta da Semiologia e urbanistica nel capitolo Il linguaggio e l’architettura, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2016, p. 86

5 Robert Smithson, The collected writings, University of California Press, New York 1996, p.132/133

Photo credits Antonello Scotti at Open Studio Day march 2025