Loredana Longo

Her research can be summarized in what the artist calls “aesthetics of destruction”, a set of visions, often provocative, in which she destroys and rebuilds her subjects, creating very suggestive and scenographic works. Known especially for a series of works called EXPLOSION, in which the artist builds real theater sets that then she destroys through an explosion, to rebuild everything after (leaving incomplete parts that testify the event). The whole process is also documented by a video projected next to the scene of the explosion. The EXPLOSION series, has been presented in various events, theaters, museums and private galleries.

In the FLOOR series, she builds huge concrete floors, working on the theme of depleted concrete: in the concrete tiles the artist inserts some materials, metaphorically selected to testify to the subject matter. In her first FLOOR she drowned workers’ clothing in three colors, green, white and red, creating a floor/flag on which the audience was forced to walk. His favorite subject remains the fire with which she works every material, whether it is explosion, as in the latest ceramics or burns as in her VICTORY, velvet fabrics in which the artist burns with an electric welder stolen images from the net. The word VICTORY becomes a provocation, the images often represent dramatic situations or situations of social and political interest. In her CARPET, a series of precious oriental carpets, she burns Western politicians’ phrases on the carpet, creating a sort of collection of precious aphorisms.

The carpet is not a neutral territory – the carpet is not the painter’s virgin canvas. It is a place “polluted” by its experience as an object, a place/symbol that captures our steps and actions where we live our domestic intimacy and where we share our social and spiritual lives.

In the manufacturing phases, the carpet absorbs the energy and the expertise from the artisan who made it – mostly women – and it presents signs and decorations drawn from specific cultural and visual values of the communities in which it was created. In Middle Eastern literature, the carpet is also a powerful, imaginative element that can bring us to other places, giving us new glances of the world.

“…We are taught that the words ‘carpet’ and ‘butterfly’ have the same etymology in classical Arabic, and certainly not only for the fascination of their colours. Weaving and knotting call to mind the plots that have been hatched against people by invisible hands… The carpet flies because it is a spiritual land – the designs on the carpet announce that land, found in a spiritual flight…” (Quote by Cristina Campo: “Gli Imperdonabili”).

An artistic intervention on the carpet can be an attempt to a dialogue and an exchange, but also an overlapping violent act. We can consider Loredana Longo’s project as a kind of particular collective work that results from the contribution of the artisan that realised the carpet and of the artist’s intervention: two different sensitivities and “hand-intelligence”, two different languages that meet or clash… A work that in both circumstances is measured with the time dimension during the creative process and the values underlying it.

In Loredana Longo’s project, choosing the carpets and the sentences to set, and looking for the lettering style fonts – in relation to the carpet iconography – constitute topical passages, both visual and conceptual.

Each phrase is associated with the artefact – the text and its position are chosen with respect for its decorative structure, searching for a precise rhythm in the spatial organization of language.

Afterwards, fire creates their marriage as it removes the matter: a removal of the upper layer that has a violent connotation. The burning process is defined by, and delimited within the letter moulds that mark the fire path. Is this engraving perhaps an attempt to leave a permanent imprint on the tradition of another culture?

The sentences have been excerpted from press reports and were pronounced during key moments of contemporary history. Through the purifying effect produced by fire, they take on different shades of meaning and encourage a deep reflection. Loredana Longo’s approach is interesting and provocative. The artist creates artefacts that can be read in opposite ways: the carpet becomes a text page – a text of good practices for everyday life, a mantra you chant, you repeat every day so that “you won’t forget”; or it can be a provocation – a criticism directed at people who think they can find the truth in sentences/slogans to “consume”.

Loredana Longo’s work opens a window on many scenarios and can convey multiple meanings: everything is always in the eyes and hearts of the viewers.

In recent years she has been the leading artist of workshops such as Art & Social Change at Gam in Palermo and the Art of Freedom at the Ucciardone Prison in Palermo.

For over twenty years she has been working in Italy and abroad.