These fragments of flesh are an illusion, carcasses and empty bodies, incomplete. Lacking a defined form, without meaning or roots, they are untouchable, sanctified. A haunting image, reminiscent of the emptiness within us. So intimate and important, yet so distant and terrifying. We exist in the world as lost wanderers: walking through our land, exploring a world of values now in ruin, searching for a new way of being, we are constantly pushed to the edge of the abyss. There are no barriers, guides, or systems to lead us away or protect us from it, and perhaps there is no reason to do so: from that abyss where the past has fallen, from that emptiness that surrounds and permeates our being, the future is born. Anxiety, proliferation, the future.

We cannot even reconnect with the past by rediscovering the carnal sense of FAITH that once united our ancestors, perhaps even unknowingly. Thus, we realize that Christianity, too, is made entirely of flesh: exposed bodies, covered, always sexualized (even when desexualized), torn, martyred, saved, made eternal, dead, undead, resurrected — they still inhabit, like ghosts, our sacred spaces. To this day, the faithful consume Christ every Sunday, in search of salvation.

Everything is unsettled: the landscape and the past, society and ourselves. Everything now reveals its emptiness, pointing towards the abyss. But this fear is fertile: it is a drive to move resolutely, beyond the furthest horizon, beyond all hope. To avoid remaining suspended, to avoid being only flesh."

"By now, it’s nothing but the resolute pursuit of modernity, and there is no plan, only necessity, urgency. [...] In this way, the body is once again at the limit, at the extremity: it comes to us from further away, the horizon is its multitude that approaches"

LEONARDO SFORZA

*Corpus of Jean-Luc Nancy, A. Moscati (Curator) Cronopio 2004

Type: Sculpture-Installation
Materials: Diplast, Jute, wooden support structure, and stainless steel hooks
Dimensions (single piece): 130 x 45 x 52 cm
Overall installation dimensions: 600 x 200 x 150 cm
Location: Museo Civico di Sala Veratti
Year: 2023

© photo: Simone Crespi