Elka Krajewska / Gregor Neuerer
Fall Flood and Higher Ground

October 6, 2018

A (A tutti) 1. I read this opening phrase
of the Livornine. Intention in one letter, a
greeting, the going-outward of the mind,
the planning, the seeing of solution and
need to communicate a vision. It rings in
my mind repeatedly. The call for response,
the open mouth of address. The most open
mouth. The making of space for gathering
and announcement, the birth of an exchange.
2. It marks the beginning of my relating the
floor wax pourings to language. 3. I observe
the materials and the way they behave in
adversarial environment, floor-wax against
asphalt, opening the floor…”

Carico Massimo, within Cantiere Toscana and in collaboration with the Municipality of Livorno, presents Fall Flood and Higher Ground, the end-of-residence project by Elka Krajewska and Gregor Neuerer.

The two artists who have been working together for years on research projects in which they reinvent communication around intimate encounters with nature, landscape, material culture, history and industry, inaugurate their first four-handed exhibition in Livorno.

After a period of residence in the city they decide to transform the industrial space of the Magazzini Generali into a poetic system that focuses mainly on the geography of the floor.

”When we entered, we immediately perceived pronounced creases on the floor, a wavy surface, like a wet carpet, which must have formed thanks to exceptional forces. We noticed substances that have penetrated: oil, grease, a mix of chemicals and industrial liquids that were noticeable as much as their smell.”

A new topography is defined and a Vocabulary is drawn which is reported in book form. The publication functions as a guide to the exhibition, thanks to a series of correspondences between the space and the pages of the book, but also as a reinterpretation of the city and its history.

A set of uniquely engraved signs and words testify to the artists’ personal and immediate response to the atmosphere experienced in Livorno, to a present and past idea of ​​the city, saturated with hope and visions of collective life.

Fall Flood and Higher Ground is a project carried out within Cantiere Toscana, the territorial network for contemporary art, supported by the Tuscany Region and Giovani sí, as part of Toscanaincontemporanea 2018.


Fall Flood and Higher Ground. Lexicon
Elka Krajewska & Gregor Neuerer
2018

€20

A project and a publication curated by
Carico Massimo
Editorial coordination
Alessandra Poggianti
Research support
Daniela Tazzi (Archivio di Stato, Livorno, Italy) & Eleonora Borghese
Translation
Eleonora Borghese
Proofreading (English Version)
Felice Rosse
Graphic Design
Brice Delarue & Valère Mougeot
(Zirkumflex)
Published and edited by
Carico Massimo
Printed in September 2018
at Media Print (Livorno, Italy)
300 copies

pdf

Italiano