Laura Grisi

In The measuring of Time the counting of grains and sand in the desert, as an instrument of measure, represented an infinite action beyond time. This endless, repetitive gesture was emphasized in a film, which was shot in a single spiral sequence, beginning with a close-up of the hands counting the grains of sand and expanding outward to reveal the figure performing the action.

Then the camera moved in again, the spiral motion reconstructing, until it returned to the detail of the hands, concluding the sequence.

Laura Grisi

Laura Grisi
(Rhodes, 1939 - Rome, 2017)

Laura Grisi's research is characterized by experimentation with different media – from painting to sculpture, from photography to moving images, from installation to sound recording.

Her first production is associated with the pop researches in Rome, with optical influences, and reveals progressive openings towards new poor and procedural operational scenarios, which imply attention to atmospheric events and natural materials, as well as the investigation of the dematerialization of the opera.

The interest in nature and its laws matures following a series of trips made with her husband, director and documentary filmmaker Folco Quilici, in South America, in Polynesia and in Africa, where Grisi begins to document through audio and film recordings the various elements of nature.

For example, the artist recalls a storm in the Sahara in which “the blowing of the wind and the swirl of the sand created a material effect that led me to consider the wind in a completely objective way”.

In close relation to the environment created in 1968 at the Teatro delle mostre (a corridor crossed by air currents generated by transformers that emitted gusts of wind involving the viewer in an experience of strong perceptual impact) is her first film Wind Speed 40 Knots (1968, b/w, 5'13 ''), made of the montage of several clips shot in various parts of the world by Quilici and his crew, where Grisi appears on several occasions while measuring the speed of the different winds: sirocco, foehn, ghibli etc.

As part of her film production, limited to the years from 1968 to 1973, is The Measuring of Time (1969, b/w, 5'45 ''), which portrays Grisi sitting on a beach while counting grains of sand on the palm of her hand, to explore an “infinite beyond time” action.

The camera moves around the artist making a spiral movement – a shape that also appears in the footprints on the sand. The spiral is a symbol that gives a mythical dimension to the female figure and in the same way refers to an infinite cosmic dimension, to which the repetitive and patient gesture of counting is associated.

As Raffaella Perna observes, Grisi gives “a bodily, performative and sexual dimension to time. The use of the film medium gives the artist the opportunity to restore the dilated temporality of the action and, above all, allows her to accentuate the cosmic quality of the woman-nature relationship through the spiral of the shot”.

Lara Conte