Rossella Biscotti

The first steps on the concrete slab

On walking (2017) by Rossella BiscottiLa Galleria Nazionale

Rossella Biscotti
(Molfetta, 1978. She lives and works in Brussels.)

“Where do we start from? The muscles tense. One leg is the pillar that supports the body between heaven and earth. The other, a pendulum that swings from behind.

The heel touches the ground. All the weight of the body is brought forward on the forefoot. The big toe takes off, and here the weight of the body, in a delicate balance, moves again. […]"

"The most obvious and darkest thing in the world is this walking, which gets lost so easily in religion, philosophy, landscape, urban politics, anatomy, allegory and yearning.”

On walking (2017) by Rossella BiscottiLa Galleria Nazionale

On Walking is a sculpture made up of five concrete modules, five consecutive stations, which record an action that is based on repetition, with both beginning and end indicated.

As if to say: there is a threshold, there is another threshold and the trace left on the gray surface is a concluded event.

On walking (2017) by Rossella BiscottiLa Galleria Nazionale

The steps imprinted on the concrete slab were left by Rossella Biscotti, and refer to the long rehabilitation which the artist underwent after an accident.

On Walking is a sculpture that tells a personal memory, but while celebrating a body, an imperfect body, a body that struggles, it evokes all the other bodies on the way: vulnerable, exposed and therefore resistant, courageous, political.

On walking (2017) by Rossella BiscottiLa Galleria Nazionale

The demonstrations, the processions, the revolutions are made by walking.

Repetition, horizontality, performativity that in Mininimalism are functional to the renunciation of narration in sculpture, are instead used by Rossella Biscotti as a way in which historical, collective or personal memory becomes a form to be distributed again.

In continuity with recent works such as Sanikem–Nyai Ontosoroh–Madame Le Boucq, Maiko, Annalies, Mei, Surati, Princess of Kasiruta (2019), A Shirt, Blue Pants, Blue Jeans, a Towel (2018) or Klara (2018), On Walking testifies to an autobiographical fact, inscribing the subject, in particular when perceived as Other, within the collective body: “Humanity is never accomplished in isolation or even in the exposure of one’s work to the public. Only those who expose their life and their person to the risk of the public sphere can achieve it.”

Cecilia Canziani

Credits: Story

Cecilia Canziani
Nel testo vengono citati:
H. Arendt, La lingua materna, p.70R. Solnit. Storia del camminare

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
Explore more
Related theme
Women Up
The National Gallery of Rome celebrates the six-year-long program dedicated to gender equality
View theme
Home
Discover
Play
Nearby
Favorites