20
14

Restlessmatter.net

restlessmatter.net is an online art project by Ferruccio Ascari. Installations and sculptures from different periods of the artist’s production become the starting points of a series of video works, progressively published on this website. As in much of his work, here the artist proceeds with variations, tackling ever present questions through ever changing languages.

20
12

Corpi
Celesti III

It is interesting to observe how certain questions addressed by Ascari’s work resurface, perhaps after many years, almost to resume a discussion that has not been interrupted[read]but has simply flowed underground, then returning and taking on new forms. This is what happens, for example, in the cycle of works under the title Corpi celesti (Heavenly Bodies), including a series of works on paper from 2006 and an installation in 2012. The same can be said for the reprise of a sound installation from 1978, Vibractions, now shown in a new version that maintains the conceptual approach of the original. The cycle Corpi celesti arises from a question – regarding the force that holds things together or repels them – that is the conceptual nucleus of many other works by the artist. A question that stays open, taking on different configurations each time, reinterpreted through different languages and different materials.
In the 2012 installation, the material is the plumb line used by masons to make a wall that is perfectly perpendicular to the floor: the point of the weights indicates the center of the Earth and the line from which they are hung is the reflection of the Axis Mundi. On the ground, there are some in an overturned position, point up, in a direction diametrically opposite from that of the center of the Earth. The work wants to make visible the energy, the gravitational forces of attraction-repulsion that hold the world together, that make the planets, the heavenly bodies, not collide.[/read]

Corpi Celesti. Brass, plumb line, 35 elements, variable dimensions, 2012 [S0030]

20
12

Corpi
Celesti IV

It is interesting to observe how certain questions addressed by Ascari’s work resurface, perhaps after many years, almost to resume a discussion that has not been interrupted[read]but has simply flowed underground, then returning and taking on new forms. This is what happens, for example, in the cycle of works under the title Corpi celesti (Heavenly Bodies), including a series of works on paper from 2006 and an installation in 2012. The same can be said for the reprise of a sound installation from 1978, Vibractions, now shown in a new version that maintains the conceptual approach of the original. The cycle Corpi celesti arises from a question – regarding the force that holds things together or repels them – that is the conceptual nucleus of many other works by the artist. A question that stays open, taking on different configurations each time, reinterpreted through different languages and different materials. In the works on paper in lampblack or curcuma, an invisible centrifugal force subtracts weight from the bodies that wander in the empty space of the sheets. Once again, the void is a latent space rendered “active” by what crosses it, a generative factor on both the temporal and the spatial planes.[/read]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0006]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0001]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0004]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [L0002]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0005]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 75×106 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0003]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 36×52 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0028]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 38×52 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0031]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on canvas, 37×50 cm, 2006-2012 [TL0050]

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20
12

Vibractions
2012

The sculptures and installations of this period are joined by works on paper, often large in size: while focusing on questions that cross the entire artist’s oeuvre,[read]certain of these works offer us a chance for perhaps a closer approach to his personal sphere, almost to his physical being. We might talk about a proximity that is exposed to the gaze, in a cycle of works on paper under a single title: Respiro (Breath). The large sheets of paper lined up in overlaid rows are crossed by bundles of sinuous lines that flee to the margins. The observer is attracted by their slenderness and, at the same time, their evidence, deceptively like filaments, or hairs embedded in applied onto the paper. The sign is actually obtained with ink, but – as the artist explains – the result is possible only through particular physical and mental preparation: “To obtain this sign, it takes a gesture done with a special brush, with long bristles, dipped in ink. The ink held by the bristles is deposited with a wide, flowing, continuous gesture. Breathing is important: the exhalation accompanies the whole trajectory of the sign on the paper, and the air contained in the lungs is released in synchrony with the release of the ink from the bristles. The lines that cross the sheet have their own shape. Those modulations can be compared to the signs made by a seismograph: the point of the brush records an inner state, just at the tip of the seismograph records telluric movements, or the encephalogram records brain activity.” It is breathing, then, its rhythm, that determines the fluid movement of the lines that cross the paper.[/read]

Vibractions 2012. Enviromental Installation, forniture, harmonic string, fur, Milano, 2012 [PE0017]

Vibractions 2012. Sound Performance, Spazio O’ Milano, 2012 [PE0017]

20
12

Cinque Stanze
Sensibili

In Cinque stanze sensibili (Five Sensitive Rooms), we can see a return to earlier questions that are still open, available to interpretation in different forms and materials, in keeping with the characteristic methods of his operation.[read]Cinque stanze sensibill is composed of five wooden parallelepipeds, hollow with a quadrangular base, vertically stacked; on each side there is a small door that offers a glimpse of the space inside. Each of them alludes to five elements: from the earth, that of the base, to the aether, at the top. The work is part of a more complex project on which the artist has worked for years, which includes drawings, sculptures, a theater piece and an architectural design. The latter calls for the construction of five meditation rooms. Each room has a single window whose geometric form (square, crescent moon, triangle, hexagon, circle) corresponds to one of the five elements. The color of each glazing is part of a range of correspondences correlated with each form. In the invention of this work, Ferruccio Ascari was inspired by one of the great traditions of ancient Indian thought, Samkhya, the philosophy that forms the foundations of Yoga. This is a woridview that has emerged in all his works of the last few decades: “Forms yearn to be, they seem to be driven by the desire to come into the light – Ascari explains – and I never cease to be amazed in the face of the secret that is harbored inside each of them. What does a form want by assuming the form it assumes? There are phases in which the fundamental impulse urges it to occupy a space, to expand in every possible direction; in others, an opposing desire, to be reabsorbed, seems to prevail. It is a dialectic movement of acceleration-deceleration, expansion-contraction, as happens with the tides, or with breathing that happens in the binary rhythm of inhalation-exhalation.” The incessant transmutation that is the fundamental principle the forms seem to obey is simply one aspect of that energy that pervades the cosmos in an eternal alternation of death and birth. In this perspective, standing up against the less of “difference” and the annihilation of social space that seem to prevail in the contemporary world – with their burden of anonymity and solitude and the loss of sense that accompanies an incessant production of images and imposition of lifestyles – the work of the artist can ultimately be seen as a form of silent but radical opposition to the spirit of the times.[/read]

Cinque Stanze Sensibili. Wood, 25x15x250 cm, 2012 [TW0028]

Cinque Stanze Sensibili. Architectural project, 25x15x250 cm, 2012

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20
12

Corpi
Celesti II

It is interesting to observe how certain questions addressed by Ascari’s work resurface, perhaps after many years, almost to resume a discussion that has not been interrupted[read]but has simply flowed underground, then returning and taking on new forms. This is what happens, for example, in the cycle of works under the title Corpi celesti (Heavenly Bodies), including a series of works on paper from 2006 and an installation in 2012. The same can be said for the reprise of a sound installation from 1978, Vibractions, now shown in a new version that maintains the conceptual approach of the original. The cycle Corpi celesti arises from a question – regarding the force that holds things together or repels them – that is the conceptual nucleus of many other works by the artist. A question that stays open, taking on different configurations each time, reinterpreted through different languages and different materials. In the works on paper in lampblack or curcuma, an invisible centrifugal force subtracts weight from the bodies that wander in the empty space of the sheets. Once again, the void is a latent space rendered “active” by what crosses it, a generative factor on both the temporal and the spatial planes.[/read]

Corpi Celesti. Curcuma on paper, 9 sheets 35×50 cm each, 2006-2012 [DG0028 a-i]

20
12

Casa Anatta
[Not Self]

In 2012, in the interiors of Casa Anatta, a unique house in Monte Verità, Switzerland, with inner walls entirely covered in wood, Ferruccio Ascari presented a new version of Vibractions, a sound installation first created in 1978.[read]Much like in the original version, harmonic strings were stretched from one side of the rooms to another, so that the inner space of the house became a musical instrument itself “played” by the artist. These four videos document the performance, held in 2012 in the house’s four room, in the form of a video-installation.
Anatta (“Not I” in Pali language) is the name of a unique house built in 1904 in Monte Verità, Switzerland. This was the main venue of the artistic, philosophical and spiritural movement which took place in Monte Verità from early to mid twentieth century.
Consistently with the artist’s typical creation process, the sound and visual material documenting the performance are the starting point of the video-installation Anatta (Non Io). The installation is composed of four videos reproducing as many rooms that give onto the central salon of the house. Every room, with harmonic strings running from one side to another, is transformed into a speaker box, a musical instrument “played” by the artist. The peculiar volumes of each room, entirely covered in wood, result into different resonances. Much like in the original installation from 1978, and the most recent version from 2012, the sound is literally generated by the environment, while the severe black and white images show a space that was closed for many years, suspended in time.[/read]

Casa Anatta [Non Io].Videoinstallation, 4 movies/4 different walls, 17’17”, Monte Verità, 2012 [PE0018]

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Casa Anatta [Non Io]. Sound installation/performance, Monte Verità, 2012 [PE0018]

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Performance’s score

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20
07

Apparente

Apparente (Apparent), a work made with 36 panes of glass arranged on six overlaid registers. The white silhouettes that emerge in each are captured as if in flight,[read]blocked for an instant in a sort of snapshot that conveys only a partial image. As the title suggests, in its etymological sense — apparent is that which is evident, manifest — this is something that seems to appear for a fraction of a second in our visual field, imprinted on the retina, and then vanishes due to the force of an unstoppable movement.[/read]

Apparente. Enamel on glass, 36 panel of glass 25×35 cm each, 2007 [DG0076]

20
03

Corpi
Celesti I

It is interesting to observe how certain questions addressed by Ascari’s work resurface, perhaps after many years, almost to resume a discussion[read]that has not been interrupted but has simply flowed underground, then returning and taking on new forms. This is what happens, for example, in the cycle of works under the title Corpi celesti (Heavenly Bodies), including a series of works on paper from 2006 and an installation in 2012. The same can be said for the reprise of a sound installation from 1978, Vibractions, now shown in a new version that maintains the conceptual approach of the original. The cycle Corpi celesti arises from a question – regarding the force that holds things together or repels them – that is the conceptual nucleus of many other works by the artist. A question that stays open, taking on different configurations each time, reinterpreted through different languages and different materials. In the works on paper in lampblack or curcuma, an invisible centrifugal force subtracts weight from the bodies that wander in the empty space of the sheets. Once again, the void is a latent space rendered “active” by what crosses it, a generative factor on both the temporal and the spatial planes.[/read]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 12 sheets 50×75 cm each, 2003/2012 [D0348]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 6 sheets 70×100 cm each, 2003/2012 [D0054]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 50×70 cm, 2003/2012 [D0349]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 50×75 cm, 2003/2012 [D0350]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0085]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 21,5×29 cm, 2003/2012 [D0366]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 21,5×29 cm, 2003/2012 [D0367]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 25,5×34 cm, 2003/2012 [D0077]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 18,5×14 cm, 2003/2012 [D0076]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0086]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0084]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0087]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0083]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 75×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0082]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 6 sheets 75×100 cm each, 2003/2012 [D0053]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0113]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0111]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0115]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 70×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0117]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 70×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0118]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 70×100 cm, 2003/2012 [D0088]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0114]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0112]

Corpi Celesti. Lampblack on paper, 79×107 cm, 2003/2012 [D0116]

Corpi Celesti. Graphite on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003/2012 [D0078]

Corpi Celesti. Graphite on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003/2012 [D0079]

Corpi Celesti. Graphite on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003/2012 [D0080]

Corpi Celesti. Graphite on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003/2012 [D0081]

20
03

Cuori
(Ex Voto) III

Cuori (Ex Voto). Curcuma on paper, 50×70 cm, 2003 [DG0052]

Cuori (Ex Voto). Curcuma on paper, 50×70 cm, 2003 [DG0053]

Cuori (Ex Voto). Curcuma on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003 [DG0054]

Cuori (Ex Voto). Curcuma on paper, 35×50 cm, 2003 [DG0055]

Cuori (Ex Voto). Curcuma on paper, 50×70 cm, 2003 [DG0026]