Rewind: Recent Episodes
Fondazione Antonio Ratti
Over the past 35 years FAR has presented numerous conferences, workshops, seminars and publications inviting thinkers from different fields: contemporary art, textile history, anthropology, literature and more. Our Rewind project aims to spread and share this amazing resource. The selected materials, presented on a biweekly basis, range across different times and disciplines, offering a new perspective on themes and ideas that are still relevant today.
Looking back, re-hearing, re-learning become strategies to move forward and the archive is activated as a fundamental tool to imagine ourselves in the future.
In the lesson held during the Corso Superiore di Disegno, Roberto Sanesi addresses the ambiguous relationship between sign and voice. If the code-sign - whether it be the stable one of writing or the freer one of the visual arts - marks its support in an immutable way, the voice that emerges is as multiple and different as the individualities to which that voice belongs: the readers of a book, the public of a painting. The whole body of literature, poetry, and art are entangled in the gap between the collective and the individual, between the outlined and the intangible. Starting from his experience as a translator of the great Anglo-Saxon literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, alternating personal reflections with the reading of his own works, Sanesi sketches the contours of this ephemeral body, cornered by the question: what do you translate when you translate? 21.01.1989, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti To download the english translation: fondazioneratti.org
"But I wish this era was over" comments Miriam Mafai, invited by Mario Fortunato at the Ratti Lectures, to discuss the issue of control over women's bodies. Starting from the assumption that the principle of habeas corpus "historically applies to everyone except women", Mafai traces a path that goes from the consideration of the female body in revealed religions, and rapes considered as spoils of war to the very ancient practice to establish a legal affiliation for women, whether to their father, husband, brother or even a "curator of the womb". All forms of control, according to anthropologists, can be traced not only to the woman's body itself, but also, and above all, to her reproductive capacity. Mafai therefore critically analyzes the achievements of the twentieth century and the result of a fertile encounter between radical movements and feminist struggles: from the possibility of access to the judiciary, the birth control pill, and the law on abortion. The conclusion, however, can only be bitter: far from being resolved, the question of control over women's bodies is reflected in the issue of the Eluana Englaro case, which was a recent event at the time, involving every phase of the life cycle, including its end. 06.03.2009, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti Language: Italian To download the english translation: http://www.fondazioneratti.org/pressKit/92/rewind_012_miriam_mafai
Visiting professor of the third edition of CSAV - Artists' Research Laboratory, Allan Kaprow retraces the evolution of his career: from the first gallery works, the environments, the happenings, up to the latest works, reserved to a smaller audience. Starting from the desire to be "the most modern artist who has ever lived in the world", Kaprow describes the gradual and programmatic exit from museums and galleries, towards a dimension as far from tradition as possible, like the streets of Los Angeles or a New York apartment. Thus, the story of his artistic path, which indelibly marked the second half of the last century, becomes the paradoxical story of the attempt to make art not in the context of art, itself but that of life. 05.07.1997, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
Patrick McGrath dialogues with Mario Fortunato about his book, Trauma, especially delving into its themes: psychiatry, madness, love, sex, and passion. Then, the conversation moves to the author: what drives them to write? When is the best moment of the day to write? Does the author always identify with his characters? How is a character born? As part of the Ratti Lecture series, the conference becomes a profound and witty exploration of the human psyche of the characters and their creator, himself. 23.11.2007, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
“I like to say about my own work that I am committed to working with ghosts. That is with cultural discard, fragments, and things that are invisible to most people, but intently important to a few”. In the words of Susan Hiller, art and dream become coordinates of a single territory, built on the edge of our conscious life and explored by the artist's work. In the lecture given for the 17th edition of CSAV - Artists' Research Laboratory (when she was invited as a visiting professor), Susan Hiller describes the dream as an activity in which we are more honest with ourselves and closer to nature, since we share this activity “with all other mammals and perhaps with other creatures as well and with other life forms”. Artists have always explored these other states of consciousness, recovering and reflecting the segments rooted in an imaginary that we often share without even knowing. The artist's work - as well as the work of dreams - brings to light the shared texture of these symbols that silently shape our reality: “in that sense - concludes the artist - all dream imagery is always social in origin”. 14.07.2011, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
Invited during the XV edition of CSAV - Artists' Research Laboratory, which saw Walid Raad as Visiting Professor, Catherine David articulates an answer to the following question: Under the dominant conditions of a globalized market and many deficits - in terms of education, production of discourse, preservation, and transmission - affecting the modern heritage in the Arab world, what are the conditions of possibility and visibility of experimental and aesthetical practices in the Middle East today? During the dense conference, which draws on her long experience in the field, Catherine David describes a complex scenario which is nevertheless fascinating and full of potential. A scenario where the lack of institutional support becomes the trigger to find new solutions and formats that are capable of responding effectively to the complexity of the situation. Without the will to propose definitive solutions, Catherine David thus highlights the many aspects of a region that is, as she claims, nothing more than "a mirror of our world". 16.07.2009, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
"I thought I saw a pussy-cat" is the famous quote that Tweety says every time Sylvester The Cat tries to approach him, with a movement that is supposed to be swift, but rather evident and heavy. Enrico Ghezzi, invited by Mario Fortunato within the Ratti Lectures’ series, uses this quote to address what he calls "the double imposture" of cinematographic image. Through a concatenation of ideas and references ranging from literature and history to television, Ghezzi narrates the illusion behind the only apparently mobile and limitless image of cinema. This double illusion, however, allows the world to watch itself happen: "XX century is considered the age of images, but it was in fact the age of recording". Thus, the history of cinema becomes the history of mankind that records and watches itself. This idea eventually reveals the paradoxical hypothesis that every moment, including the one to come, is only the repetition of something that has already happened. 02.12.2007 Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti Language: Italian To download the english translation visit: http://www.fondazioneratti.org/pressKit/90/rewind_007_enrico_ghezzi
In the opening lecture of the X CSAV - Artists’ Research Laboratory, when he was visiting professor, Jimmie Durham presents his artistic practice, rejecting the very category of art, as well as the category of music, architecture and literature. Starting from the title "Stones Rejected by the Builder", Durham questions the figure of the architect, representing a hierarchical system where someone judges which stone can be used and which has to be discarded. In his practice instead, the stones - be them pebbles or flint knives - become tools to be thrown, to carve, to smash or to transform and, within this very transformation, to allow the possibility of art. 03.07.2004 Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
While introducing their theoretical and practical course, Saviana Parodi and Luca Puri explain the central aspects of permaculture design. This empirical science is based on four fundamental actions: observing, thinking, designing and acting. First of all, permaculture practice should be addressed to ourselves and then to the external environment, creating a constant connection between mindscape and landscape. The search for a new balance, inspired by the natural models, becomes a way of conceiving the world and our life within world as a "permanent human culture" shaped on ethical principles such as care of others, self-care, care of the Earth as a living organism and sharing surplus. In this perspective, permacultural design can be applied to every aspect of everyday life and, as Annie Ratti states, it is present in the values of the Foundation, whose mission is “to open up to the territory, to be sensitive to the contemporary and to contemporary practices".
09.11.2016, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti Language: Italian
In this lecture included in the international symposium Collecting Textiles, Seth Siegelaub talks about his experience as a collector, tracing the origins of his passion for antique textiles and, above all, for books on textiles. The personal and almost intimate character of his collection is nevertheless moved by the desire to make his work completely accessible, open and alive. He wishes, therefore, to leave his legacy when he will find "the right conditions". Seth Siegelaub then concludes the conference with an excursus dedicated to the historical categories of books on textiles and a critical examination of the current cataloguing of textile items based on their origin.
20.09.2012, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
For the second time speaker at FAR, Lea Vergine focuses her intervention on the figure of the artist within the social context. Taking up one of her best-known publications such as Body as Language, she describes the artists as those who "manage - and so do we - to get around the knots of life, to drift along the tangents of the question at stake which is basically always the same: the fear and trouble of living”. Quoting Mario Fortunato, curator of the Ratti Lectures’ cycle: “the idea was to address the theme of contemporary art, one rightly or wrongly considered too difficult or elitist, starting from keywords with a direct and clear meaning – fear and desire, in this case.” Then, Lea Vergine briefly addresses other pressing issues, such as the relationship between fashion and art, the globalization of art with particular reference to the East and a critical analysis of the contemporary art system, starting from the interference between the figure of the art critic and that of the curator.
03.04.2009, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti Language: Italian To download the english translation visit: http://www.fondazioneratti.org/pressKit/87/rewind_003_lea_vergine
Invited during the XIII edition of CSAV - Artists' Research Laboratory, with Joan Jonas as Visiting Professor, Marina Warner illustrates the developments of magical thinking in the XX century, in relation to anthropological research and scientific discoveries. The evolution of the figure and the term shaman are thus reflected in the corridors of an ethnographic museum and in the everyday life of children's bestsellers such as Harry Potter or His Dark Matter as well as in artistic practices. In this dense excursus, Marina Warner dialogues with Aby Warburg's intuitions about the ritual snake dance of Hopi Indians, the same followed by Joan Jonas for her performance The Shape, The Scent, The Feel of Things. It is therefore the ability of the ritual to dialogue with other worlds and dimensions, that reveals "the true language of art: the flight of the shaman's mind".
05.07.2007, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti
In this lecture Alanna Heiss traces the evolution of a cultural and artistic scene she has lived and still lives as an active protagonist. In 1970s New York, the rejection of the museum led Heiss to a constant search for alternative spaces, where new solutions could emerge. From the very first nomadic projects, in fact, the close collaboration with some of the most significant artists of her generation goes along with the redefinition of the relationship between curatorial research, artistic research and urban structure. It is after these experiences that Heiss came to found institutions such as Clocktower or PS1, which are still today landmarks on the international art scene. The lecture is part of the project The most beautiful Kunsthalle in the world.
17.12.2010, Archive Fondazione Antonio Ratti