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The life of Alice Cattaneo’s works is always in danger. The delicacy of these structures and the insubstantiality of their materials make them fragile, intangible and dramatically poetic. In them, we find elements from our daily life, one after another, woven into a net made with daily materials such as cardboard, nylon, wooden sticks, etc. With these simple tools, Alice covers minimal space, but she also covers infinitesimal distances, finding and measuring new realities. From San Francisco to London, Glasgow and Milan, this artist works in dealing with quiet and miniscule dynamics. The artistic research we are analysing, could be studied in comparison to other mainstream’s artists—like Tom Friedman, first of all—or, better, it seems to more correct to connect her ideas to … |
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Possible Distances. A Quick Run With Alice Cattaneo – Alessandro Castiglioni
The life of Alice Cattaneo’s works is always in danger. The delicacy of these structures and the insubstantiality of their materials make them fragile, intangible and dramatically poetic. In them, we find elements from our daily life, one after another, woven into a net made with daily materials such as cardboard, nylon, wooden sticks, etc. With these simple tools, Alice covers minimal space, but she also covers infinitesimal distances, finding and measuring new realities.
From San Francisco to London, Glasgow and Milan, this artist works in dealing with quiet and miniscule dynamics. The artistic research we are analysing, could be studied in comparison to other mainstream’s artists—like Tom Friedman, first of all—or, better, it seems to more correct to connect her ideas to a current of European art history, which focused on microscopic elements. Microscopic investigations have left their mark on art history since the Middle Ages, characterized by an obsession with details—analysis of the smallest elements of reality—and by interpreting them as metaphors of our common life.
Formula Perfetta is a perfect example. In the artist’s words, “This sculpture is like the resolution of a complicated theorem. It is a miniature device that remains precariously but constantly balanced, thanks to the equilibrium of its weights and materials. Everything holds together with the help of a thin piece of thread.” This meticulous object (4 x 2x 2.5 cm) lives, not only in tensions and equilibriums, but it also expresses and reassumes this analytic attitude, additionally creating a poetic and enigmatic shape.
During the last two years, the work of Alice Cattaneo has grown, paradoxically, bigger while analyzing even smaller details. The fragments of suspended geometries have transformed themselves into cities (Untitled, 2006). But, the destinies of these paper castles are no less evanescent. In fact, while increasing the performance aspect of her activity, Alice projects these installations in the moment of their site-specific construction so that they die at the end of their exhibition. And, if the secret that wraps their creation is hidden, their destruction is documented by videos that film their sad, methodical decline. These stories have an announced end. In the future, it will be interesting find out how Alice will use this material.
Another important aspect of her research deals with video. Alice shoots short movies, light and delicate, like her sculptures. It is fascinating how, in film, simple objects become incredibly magical: plastic frogs, cotton clouds and singers made from blue tape populate this fairy world where minimal acts and gestures are meaningful and lyrical, something that we rarely find in contemporary videos.
In brief, Alice Cattaneo is one of the most interesting European artists of this new generation not only because of her simple and direct way of expressing poetical instances but also for her ability in interpreting the recent history of the contemporary arts, starting with Spazialismo, Fluxus, performances and video art.
And if anyone asks of the future implications of this work, what it could provoke, would it resist? I only remember what Philip Merilees, in 1972, concocted, suggesting that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas.
