“THE WORLD IN ROLLS”

Michela Cicchinè

Tell about the world or about your relationship with the world through the explicit use of tissue paper. This is what the museology expert and art critic Maurizio Vanni, curator of the video-art expo “The world in rolls” produced by Lu.C.C.A. – Lucca Center of Contemporary Art, asked six young video-artists – Francesco Attolini, Christian Balzano, Luca Gaddini, Massimiliano Galliani, Maria Antonietta Scarpari, Francesco Zavattari – to do for the world tour (8-31 October 2013). This event was part of iT’s Tissue, the biennial appointment created by the TIssueITaly Network that in 2013 brought about 700 trade specialists from every part of the globe to Lucca. Eight stopovers saw the projection of the videos in all the Italian Culture Institutes or Embassies of São Paolo, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, Istanbul and Saint Petersburg.

In two minutes, the video-artists had to condense their reflections on the theme given and the results were very unique. Francesco Attolini and Luca Gaddini concentrated on the physiognomy of faces: the first, in particular, on the portraits of people showing different reactions to the use of tissue paper and who transmitted their emotions to the attentive eye of the artist in real time, while the second created “shrouds” that rarefied faces, almost crystallizing them and immerging them in a timeless atmosphere. Maria Antonietta Scarpari gave free reign to emotions by treating the theme of the eternal cycle of life through the tale of birth. Christian Balzano used tissue as a pretext for his reflections on the space surrounding him, creating a dreamlike scenario between sculpture and architecture, while Massimiliano Galliani made the concept of time explicit by borrowing Leonardo’s masterpiece “Mona Lisa” with its craquelé (dense cracking) and recreating it on canvas using tissue paper. And last but not least, Francesco Zavattari started off with a bitter reflection on the present: a state of chaos and decadence that we rise up from only through a process of deep physical and moral cleansing. Tissue as a metaphor of existence and a means of purification in a world that seems to be rolling downhill.