Tuesday, November 23, 2010

PlastiKilim, a banner



Author: me.
Year: 2010.
Title: Recuperiamoci.
(let us recover/recycle ourselves).
Technique: Kilim.
Warp: cotton.
Weft: recycled plastic package.
Size:70 x 400 Cm.
Weight: 2680 Gr.

by appointment of Recuperiamoci: "let us recover/recycle ourselves", Jail Marketing Enterprise.

FaceBook Photo Album

Flicker XL Photo Album

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Weaving Refugees 2: Women at work


Video taken by women and edited by me.
Taller Femenino de la Union Nacional Mujeres Saharaui, Wilaya de Dajla, 2007.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Textile jevels, sculptures...


Textile jevels, sculptures, ornaments and boxes.
Objects made by hand weaving of ancient pages, real gold thread, sometimes glass beads from Africa, wrought iron keys from India, porcupine quills.
Antique books have wonderful pages, which last for centuries. The ancient paper was made by recycling of hemp and linen fabrics, hand spun and hand woweny. Here is therefore a material rich in history, even when it was new, a few centuries ago.
Italy is full of antique books, they are mostly due to the Catholic Church, which had a lot to print: ritual or theological manuals, law, hagiography. Those Popes stripped the marble of ancient Rome, to build new churches and palaces, they even merged the ancient bronzes of Pantheon for their modern gun batteries in Castel Sant'Angelo. Should I not have the right to recycle their old books in my modern weaving?

Friday, August 27, 2010

Students' shots

Three Students of Photography in the Fine Art Academy of Terni came to visit my workshop: Angela Beninati, Edy Mostarda and Gianluca Pantaleo. I here selected three shots by each student:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucianoghersi/sets/72157624690327933/

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Weaving Refugees 1: Field Interview


Saharawi Regugee Camp of Dajla, 2005.

Interwiew and video by Union Nacional Mujeres Saharaui, Wilaya de Dajla.
Film editing by me. I hope that the forthcoming episodes wil be more exciting.

MORE ABOUT:
-Reality and politics in the Saharawi carpets.

-Corso di Formazione Tessile Tradizionale e Sperimentale

Monday, August 09, 2010

Templer Road PDF


TEMPLER





ROAD


My Catalog "Templer Road - Blankets of Wisdom" is now online!
I am proud of my first test with IPhoto...
but I must divide it into 2 files: 5.6 Mb + 6 Mb. Sorry :-(

http://www.hypertextile.net/templerroad1-2.pdf

http://www.hypertextile.net/templerroad2-2.pdf

Older Post:
Templer Road – Blankets of wisdom

Italian Tribal Art of the XXI century


WORLD PREMIERE
VIDEO
VERSIONE ITALIANA

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Monday, July 05, 2010

Thursday, June 10, 2010

a VIP exhibition, may be

1998. After I hand-woven a train for a railway station in Norway, I am preparing to emigrate to Norway. Mr. Diseperati (Mr. "Hopeless"), which has an art gallery in the Hotel Saturnia (VIP thermal baths), he offers me a show in that hotel. Daniel Spoerri is invited to the inauguration, so he approves my project of Global Home. Then I no longer migrated to Norway.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Global Home, 2000



My nomadic weaving workshop reaches Goerlitz, the easternmost city of Europe at that time. I camp in the monumental cemetery and teach absolute beginners to weave with any recyclable fiber.

More about: "Global Home"

Music: Mieczlaw Litwinsky, Saba Litwinska (Sol et Luna)
Poetry: Andreas Blochwitz

Video clipping from: Artemision Project.
Video Author: Weslaw Kleszcz

Monday, June 07, 2010

Meeting today a page

Meeting today a page written by S.B. Dissanayake for my exhibition "Textile Appetizers" in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1996.

This page is a dear memory for me. I was directed to Professor Dissanayake by Tilak Samarawickrema. The Professor was in a cottage outside Kandi, hills, surrounded by tropical jungle. I found him kindly droving away the monkeys that had invaded the studio, messing his objects of ancient art and modern. He was an elderly gentleman, careless and smart, British-style. But he still retained the warm and cosmic smile that distinguishes the Sinhalese people.He watched my photos, let me talk about my work, taking notes with a fountain pen. He had some questions, all sharp and quite specific. Then he sent his page in a letter.

I generally do not have much esteem for art critics, especially the Italians. I, however, I have a real reverence for Dissanayake, not only because he wrote quite well of my work...
but also because he wrote with great simplicity, that reminds me of Bruno Munari. But he was even prophetic in the sentence:
"He is an artist who has, to my mind, committed himself to a cause: that of education, in addition to avant-guardism."



S. B. DISSANAYAKE
(August 96)
THE WEAVER'S CRAFT AND ART BY LUCIANO GHERSI

Luciano Ghersi is a weaver whose preoccupations are those of all modern twentieth century artists: extending the subject matter of art, extending the materials you can make it from, and new applications of old skills. With a singular strength of will in his work, arrived at only by a conscious clarity and the full possession of the resources of his craft, he achieves a refined elegance in matters of taste in his creations, and, their display. It is a quality which defines purity, in painting as in weaving. Luciano Ghersi has no mind to speculate on 'sentiment' or introduce 'ideas', until the 'sentiment' and the ideas' have been skillfully and subtly organized. Some of his large-scale works are skillfully displayed in public places (the 'Poncho' draped on the neoclassical sculpture in a town square, and his tapestries on the city wall announcing a weaver's workshop) both shock and inspire; they dominate and triumph in their purpose.

In many of these works, his purpose seems to me, is to present life and things human (human detritus for example) just as they are. It is a purpose and program not without a certain ingeniousness, but their positive merit, it seems to me, is to have found, or rather, to have introduced, poetry, and sometimes the purest poetry, in things or themes, which until now have been considered base or insignificant. But in the world of art, there is no subject or material which the artist's handiwork cannot ennoble or debase, render disgusting or delightful: nothing is too solid, or heavy, or too strong for him; or, from an artistic point of view, too explicit. The artist is eager to wield (thorough, in Luciano's case, woven things) an influence on society, on ordinary people and craftsmen alike. It is his anxiety to reach an aim quite other than that of mere entertainment which distiguishes Luciano Ghersi from most post-modern artists. He is an artist who has, to my mind, committed himself to a cause: that of education, in addition to avant-guardism.

The real presence of things in his work; barb-wire, human detritus from beaches, plastic, rope, bits of fish-net etc. are intellectual transpositions which the weaver's craft has achieved in transforming into art. It is, Luciano Ghersi's way of looking at and handling the world around him, by the individual operations of his hand and his eye, with which, he transforms his individual act of seeing into a thing seen and to be looked at by us. His works absorb, dismiss and consume our sense of surprise, replacing the modern question of how it was done, in the same way as music can sometimes so enchant us that the very existence of sounds is forgotten.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Blankets of Wisdom World première


CATALOG

Templer Road – Blankets of wisdom
Italian Tribal Art of the XXI century


>>> ALBUM FB
>>> CATALOGO PDF
>>> VIDEO
VERSIONE ITALIANA

That which is narrated, amongst the one thousand and one stories, can be found in in the woof of my Blankets of Wisdom. Blankets of Wisdom? There is nothing strange: every woven fabric is woven with knowledge, as much as every human handwork ... if not more. More the fabric is handmade, more will give to human knowledge. Collector, client, paying user, just think about, before saying that you do not need it. Buy me, put your blanket of knowledge exactly on top of your bed every day and every night. She will be your friend, she will receive you and will advise you, she will surprise you and will cheer you up. The blanket of knowledge is indispensible for families: she will participate in your embraces and eventual offspring. If you have the privilige of diying in your home, she will cover you. A little bit of her spirit will merge with yours. In the end, they are not different. It has always happened, it is not a novelty, we have only to remember the history of humanity, that has always been covered with fabrics. Just like the reality, that will be always veiled with a fabric of cosmic illusions.

Also with the tribal nomads, spirit or knowledge are not mental abstractions, they live operating through all bodies. The spirit of knowledge emerges also from their hand made products. Every utensil is spirit and material. Today the nomads are disappearing and with them, their manufacts are becoming “rare tribal art”. The so called “Rugs” of the nomads, were also their beds and blankets or camping sacks for their tents, calling them “Homes” or “Families” according to the apparent deficiency of the primitive language.. Inside the tent-home-family, the tribes lived in luxury. Inspite of their appearance, they surrounded themselves with masterpieces, not like modern people, that are surrounded by miserable luxury, their modern unhappiness. It is also true, that many nomads, with the progress of modernity, have become impoverished. The Nomads are reduced to selling their older rugs to modern people, that appreciate them. There is nothing to be amazed at: this is the usual History of Art.

Now I will start to narrate a story of mine. It might seem somewhat unusual, but not so much. Once upon a time ..... roaming the Orient, in some ancient city, a street sign told me I was walking in Templer Road. I thanked the British Empire for the toponomastic information …. but I did not see Templers or Temples in Templer Road, inspite of the fact that the town was very religious. There were in fact Buddhists, Muslims, Hindu, Christian and Animist. As for buildings, in a certain sense used for cult, there was only an artisanal pasta factory. Directed by a priest, a gesuit from Naples. It produced maccaroni for certain Grand Hotels. He organised weddings, of Catholic Rite, for his young pagan female labourers. He was not crazy, I have the photographs ... and I cannot forget Templer Road. If I was not illuminated, I had at least a gleam.

On the other hand, Varrone the famous Latin scribbler, pointed out that “The Temple” in its original meaning, was a separate portion. Especially that imaginary space, that the Augure marked the sky with his magic wand. Doing so, he limits the sector within which he forecasts, by observing the flight of the birds. By means of his mystic job of bird watching ( aves spicere). Moreover there is a mental temple in every single human body. It corresponds to the Temple in the skies, the one that the Augure inscribes and innaugurates with the magic wand. And, amongst us Sapiens, the thread of thought unwinds in the head, word after word, in the circumscribed space of the temples. In between the temples, there is Time (tempus) and its space and all the body (this unkown) body. There is no Kant to be angry with, a punch in the head is enough and the thought is over.

In ancient times, thoughts were threads. Originally the mind was a loom for weaving. Concretely speaking, the mind was space, time and body ... In other words: rhythm. The structure of the loom has a specific organ, that corresponds to the temples of Sapiens that corresponds to the magic wand of Augure. It is a means to define a templar zone, which probably is the same as above. This area of the loom is not circumscribed to the infinite skies and not even in the mind between the temples. Also in this “new” enclosed area, Art and Culture are created or procreated. In short, something is made: objects. Each one useful to cover, to warm, to contain. These objects are not only useful for these trivial funtions, because knowledge adds a value, that is commonly interpreted as a sign: the so called Tribal art.

The magic wand in the looms, is called “Templer”, which is described in wikipedia – the free encyclopedia - . “The Templer is a tool used in weaving, to prevent the narrowing of the fabric during the manifacture”. The Templar is also a nomadic tool, that has to be moved periodically as the cloth grows. The useful. gesture to move this tool, is
inserted in the periodic rythm of weaving. It is this gesture that (according to me) gives me the luxury to impress certain signals in the coloured material of each blanket of knowledge of mine. Signals that are, in substance, the imprints of my footsteps on Templer Road. This gratuitus system of signaling, seems to me an old tribal trick, which I did not invent. If my unaware footsteps trace ancient paths or crafts, it will give me a reason for pride and consolation “In my craft or sullen art” of weawing .

Therefore, amongst my various tricks, probably tribal, which I use (I am not going to explain them), I found this trick that I call “Templer Road”. I have adopted it and fell in love with it and have not stopped feeling satisfied in using it: because it increased my joy in weaving. Hoping that “Templer Road” increases the delight of my Dear clients, collectors, paying users ... it is understood, according to the context. Tribal art was not originally conceived as merchandise. But it is incommensurable value has to be translated into commensurable prices.

And tomorrow ... who knows? So these blankets of knowledge are “Italian Tribal Art of the XXI century? Certainly it is a “made in Italy” ….. by me. It could be traced back to an obscure local tradition of textile art. However, just think that tribal art is composed by deeds and rhythms, more than signs or projects – designs. This is what my title relentlessly means.

Luciano Ghersi
Faculty of Weaving in Porchiano, March 8, 2010
english version by Franklin Watts

>>> ALBUM FB
>>> CATALOGO PDF
>>> VIDEO


VERSIONE ITALIANA

Friday, April 16, 2010

Pay TexoPhon (Firenze, 2000)



performance of HandLoom music
PLS insert a dollar bill for play...

More about Pay TexoPhon

Friday, January 29, 2010

True HAND Loom.


Teaching tool in Faculty of Weaving

Friday, January 15, 2010

Asymmetric Kente Cloth


Stunning asymmetric pattern in this Ewe Kente Cloth.
Details and Virtual Stitching.
Fragment found in Klikor, Ghana, between 2002 and 2004.

> More about Ewe Kente
http://www.hypertextile.net/hih/english
> More about Virtual Stitching

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Fake 'n' Art Directors


This "artwork" by me was included in some International Art Exhibition. It should have been returned after exhibition.
But the same artwork piece is now claimed to be included into the private collection of the Art Director of the same International Art Exhibition.

I'm sorry: I neither sold my piece (nor gave it as a present) to the Art Director of that International Art Exhibition.
I don't suggest that the Art Director is a thief! I simply affirm that my claimed piece is a fake, and my signature on it is forged.

'M sorry for Christies, of course.