1970 – 1974
Travel notebooks
Sovana was one of the fixed ports of call during my excursions to Maremma on my Guzzi Galletto 150. Sovana inspired large containers, parallelepipeds embedded in the ground with the tip pointing skywards; inside, sometimes in rows sometimes scattered about, sings, points, long stripes folding over themselves, now one way now the other, in a continuous ascent. The long stripes began to take over from everything else until they emerged from the earth and stretched out on their own towards the horizon: the flying carpet. From a photo of the painter Aldo Carpi sitting painting at an easel, I derived a silhouette and matrix so as to be able to cut it out on any kind of paper backing. Next I added the flying carpet which, stretched towards the horizon. I made drawings, designs for decorations, cover for periodicals, all with the same element, the flying carpet. I might draw it freehand or geometrically but it was ever present in my notebooks. I also used it to decorate a service of plates, using two colours, black and yellow. On a trip to New York I conceived of a blank facade with the flying carpet rising out of the base of the building to decorate the entire facade (the commission also was entirely imaginary in this case).