The woman of the knots

The woman of the knots (1973) is shown to the public for the second time since its creation and with significant interventions compared to the previous version. The sculpture was stripped of the gauze that covered it and prevented its unveiling. The genesis of the work coincides, according to the Fluxus modes of action, with the work itself and the sculpture is composed over time by recreating several fragments, not the result of a personal vision but of a collective process: the rope with the knots, created by a person named Deutsch and seen in a brewery in Cologne where Brecht went in 1973 with Neapolitan friends; the visit to the marble quarry at Carrara, time later; and, finally, the sudden image, appearing on the road to Milan, of a relaxed woman holding a knotted rope in her hand. Together these elements gave substance to the work, transformed into a marble sculpture made by Sauro Ferrari and completed by the knotted rope sold by Deutsch. The work is, therefore, a testimony of the trespass between art and life professed by Fluxus and is the residual element of a process, of which Brecht had the 'only' merit to have a vision, merged into a work that combines multiple elements, only apparently distant from each other.

Courtesy Maria Teresa Incisetto. On loan in Madre · museo d'arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples.