So Leggère
Francesco Cagnin
29.04—21.05.2017
Organised by DOC! Expositions
So Leggère is the first solo show of Francesco Cagnin in Paris. He presents an installation thought and conceived for DOC! and guides the spectator’s wandering in various reading’s way, poetics and spatial.
Francesco Cagnin (born 1988 in Italy) lives and works in Zurich.
DOC!
Paris, France
https://doc.work/event/so-leggere/
Photographs: Paul Nicoué
Graphic design: Baldinger·Vu-Huu
When Francesco told me about the installation he was developing for his exhibition, he used the metaphor of the ‘light lunch.’ Words are lighter than objects, and floating words are lighter than statements. Is therefore his an exhibition that doesn’t make any statement? I mean, is it even possible to conceive an exhibition as such, an exhibition that doesn’t make statements? You say: ‘he’s so mental,’ because at the end of the day this is cryptic. You say: ‘he’s so anal,’ because everything is so straight and the brainchild of a technophile. You say: ‘he’s so dull.’ Still Francesco is light, these bands being the ropes of a high-wire walker. He wove words into ropes, so to donate them substance, and a function, without resorting to their meaning.
One could say this is concrete poetry. I say: forget pragmatics, forget syntax, forget semantics. Read, but because while reading you move. ‘Then Joana suddenly understood that the utmost beauty was to be found in succession, that movement explained form—it was so high and pure to cry: movement explains form!—and pain was also to be found in succession because the body was slower than the movement of uninterrupted continuity.’ I quote these words from the novel I am reading. I read them today on the bus, standing in balance, hieratically. Balance is the skill you need to oppose uncertainty. ‘Treading a fine line’ they say when you endanger your balance. And so comes vertigo, and so comes the fall.
This exhibition gives you the chance to test your balance. So squeeze your belly and walk on the wires, walk on the words. You’re very light, you’re almost floating. Enjoy vertigo, don’t fear falling. Don’t fear at all. Last night I watched a documentary about students demonstrations in 1970s Italy. A woman, an adorable pothead, uttered: ‘Too often words represent a moving away from the belly. I want my belly back! I want to feel it! I want to feel it along with all the bellies that are here! I can’t stand brain anymore! I don’t want it anymore!’ Francesco cares about his belly, and about your belly too. That’s why he put together a light show.
Michele D’Aurizio