--> Saturday, JANUARY 4th, 2014 @ 6:30 PM
Perforation of the Fibonacci Series in a Book
The Fibonacci series is a sequence of numbers, such as 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. . . in which each successive number is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers. Many shapes occurring in nature have proportions that can be described in terms of the Fibonacci sequence. Because of its properties, various artists have been fascinated by the possibilities of exploration of space and time using the Fibonacci series, most notably Mario Merz.
While reading Merz’s book Lo Spazio e’ Curvo o Dritto (Space is Curved or Straight), Elena Berriolo had the idea of creating a perforated book using the Fibonacci sequence. In this presentation, the artist explores her process and explains how she was able to find an unexpected symmetry in the Fibonacci series—in mathematical terms: Fn= 2xF(n-2)+ F(n-3)—by perforating its numbers as holes through the pages of a book, using the pages as a non-virtual “multi-plication” medium in space and time.
Elena Berriolo is a New York-based visual artist using the book format, performance and the sewing machine as her main mediums. This project continues Berriolo’s work of reinterpreting canonical visual artists, which started in her July/August 2012 Brooklyn Rail article “Why didn’t Lucio Fontana use my sewing machine?” Her transcriptions include works from Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Ellsworth Kelly and Henri Matisse, among others. In 2013, Berriolo performed her “Transcription of Piero Manzoni’s Infinite Line with Sewing Machine” at This Red Door residencies at Kunsthalle Galapagos and Reh Kunst in Berlin.
Her work is in the collections of the University of Delaware Library; Rare Book Collection William Allan Neilson Library Smith College Northampton, Mass.; Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany; Rare Book Collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; Rare Books Collection of the Bibliothèque “La Méjanes,” Aix en Provence, France; Médiathèque La Durance,” Cavaillon, France; Centro Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy.
