Wooden structure, foam rubber sheets, red ratchet straps, loudspeakers
Audio: Astor Piazzolla, "Regreso al amor", 1988, 6'17"
Wooden structure: 200 x 125 x 40 cm, loudspeakers from wooden wine crates: each 29 x 20.5 x 11 cm
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz
In addition to sculpture, performance, collage and video as means of expression, Liliana Moro (born in 1961 in Milan) focuses in her artistic practice above all on sound, an aspect that has accompanied her work from the outset. Her art creates a delicate balance between seemingly simple materials and objects. In contrast to the art of the 1970s, Moro is no longer concerned with evoking original or archetypal structures but rather on tapping into the viewers' perceptions and emotions. Often her works are based on everyday objects and situations, inviting the audience to go beyond what they see at first glance.
Moro is regarded as an artist of the generation that followed the Italian Arte Povera movement. She trained at the Brera Academy in Milan under the tuition of Luciano Fabro – at a time when Arte Povera was finding its way into art academies and museum collections and a process of its gradual historicisation was just beginning.
Avvinghiatissimi consists of a bed frame leaning upright against the wall. Strapped on with red ratchet-straps are several sheets of foam rubber of varying thickness and two black loudspeakers playing a modern tango by Astor Piazzolla, "Regreso al amor" [Return to Love], as background music. The sound in particular serves as an immaterial element that provides an entry point to the work, alters perception and engages the viewer emotionally. The result is a slightly romantic sense of melancholy that is tangible in many of the artist's works.
Owing to her financial plight at the time, Moro used her own bed to create this piece, sleeping for a while on a mattress on the ground.
Henrik Utermöhle
"Sound almost inevitably has a public dimension, sound is 'free space'. Through sound, sometimes an all-encompassing relationship is created with people, various senses are involved and I think the imaginative processes are also set in motion."
Liliana Moro
Liliana Moro. Andante con moto, Letizia Ragaglia (ed.), exhibition catalogue Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Berlin (Distanz) 2024, p. 141.
