Elisabetta d'Inghilterra, Lecture-performance 37ª Biennale di Venezia, 1976
Vincenzo Agnetti, Edited by Achille Filipponi
Axis Axis is pleased to present the release of Elisabetta d'Inghilterra by Vincenzo Agnetti. This publication brings, for the first time in book form, the complete word-for-word transcription of the lecture-performance presented by Agnetti on 21 July 1976 in the rooms of the Giudecca in Venice, as part of ATTIVO, a programme organised by Tommaso Trini during the 37th Venice Biennale.
The performance belongs to Agnetti's Teatro Statico – a theatre that unfolds, as the artist himself stated, "inside the observer". The scenic setup was conceived to draw the viewer gradually and almost imperceptibly into the work: a room with twelve photographic images, a table, a chair, a light, two microphones (A and B), and the performer-orator alternating between critical action and storytelling. Fifty years on, the video recording of that event has been transformed into a book: a pure transcription, word for word, image for image, of what happened then.
The essay by Bruno Corà situates Elisabetta d'Inghilterra within Agnetti's broader practice – from his early encounter with the Piccolo Teatro school in Milan to the development of a subtractive poetics in which performance strips away everything superfluous: actors, costumes, sets, text. What remains is the word in its irreducible ambiguity, and the object as a "reminder" around which a discourse is built. "Perception is gaining consciousness", Agnetti declared, "not celebration". A text by Germana Agnetti, daughter of the artist, reflects on what changes – and what is gained and lost – when a performance becomes a book.
Noi, noi siamo dei ready-mades.
Ognuno di noi è a sua volta ricco di ready-mades.
Oggetti pronti all’uso e alla storia.
I pensieri sono dei ready-mades.
Anche questo mio discorso è un oggetto ritrovato, pronto e sfilato in molte parti,
uno degli oggetti che ho dentro di me e che oggi sto recuperando,
collocazione estetica di un ready-made in uno... in uno stato performantico.
Vincenzo Agnetti
This volume was published fifty years after the original event, in collaboration with Archivio Agnetti.
Vincenzo Agnetti (1926-1981) was a Milan-based artist, poet, and theorist, a central figure in Italian conceptual art. Trained at the Brera Academy, he developed an interdisciplinary practice spanning literature, visual art, philosophy, and performance. His work consistently interrogated the instability of language and the ambiguity of systems of meaning – from the Macchina drogata (1967-68), a modified typewriter that omits letters from the alphabet, to the NEG (1970), a record player that captures silences rather than sound. His Teatro Statico – of which Elisabetta d'Inghilterra (1976) is a key example – proposed a theatre without movement, without characters, without text: a theatre that takes place entirely in the mind of the observer. He died in Milan on 1 September 1981.
Design by Federico Antonini
Softcover
16x24 cm
376 pgs (IT-ENG)
First edition
300 copies
Elisabetta d'Inghilterra, Lecture-performance 37ª Biennale di Venezia, 1976
Vincenzo Agnetti, Edited by Achille Filipponi
Axis Axis is pleased to present the release of Elisabetta d'Inghilterra by Vincenzo Agnetti. This publication brings, for the first time in book form, the complete word-for-word transcription of the lecture-performance presented by Agnetti on 21 July 1976 in the rooms of the Giudecca in Venice, as part of ATTIVO, a programme organised by Tommaso Trini during the 37th Venice Biennale.
The performance belongs to Agnetti's Teatro Statico – a theatre that unfolds, as the artist himself stated, "inside the observer". The scenic setup was conceived to draw the viewer gradually and almost imperceptibly into the work: a room with twelve photographic images, a table, a chair, a light, two microphones (A and B), and the performer-orator alternating between critical action and storytelling. Fifty years on, the video recording of that event has been transformed into a book: a pure transcription, word for word, image for image, of what happened then.
The essay by Bruno Corà situates Elisabetta d'Inghilterra within Agnetti's broader practice – from his early encounter with the Piccolo Teatro school in Milan to the development of a subtractive poetics in which performance strips away everything superfluous: actors, costumes, sets, text. What remains is the word in its irreducible ambiguity, and the object as a "reminder" around which a discourse is built. "Perception is gaining consciousness", Agnetti declared, "not celebration". A text by Germana Agnetti, daughter of the artist, reflects on what changes – and what is gained and lost – when a performance becomes a book.
Noi, noi siamo dei ready-mades.
Ognuno di noi è a sua volta ricco di ready-mades.
Oggetti pronti all’uso e alla storia.
I pensieri sono dei ready-mades.
Anche questo mio discorso è un oggetto ritrovato, pronto e sfilato in molte parti,
uno degli oggetti che ho dentro di me e che oggi sto recuperando,
collocazione estetica di un ready-made in uno... in uno stato performantico.
Vincenzo Agnetti
This volume was published fifty years after the original event, in collaboration with Archivio Agnetti.
Vincenzo Agnetti (1926-1981) was a Milan-based artist, poet, and theorist, a central figure in Italian conceptual art. Trained at the Brera Academy, he developed an interdisciplinary practice spanning literature, visual art, philosophy, and performance. His work consistently interrogated the instability of language and the ambiguity of systems of meaning – from the Macchina drogata (1967-68), a modified typewriter that omits letters from the alphabet, to the NEG (1970), a record player that captures silences rather than sound. His Teatro Statico – of which Elisabetta d'Inghilterra (1976) is a key example – proposed a theatre without movement, without characters, without text: a theatre that takes place entirely in the mind of the observer. He died in Milan on 1 September 1981.
Softcover
16x24 cm
376 pgs (IT-ENG)
First edition
300 copies