Simone Forti, recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2023 Biennale Danza, is a trailblazer in the realms of dance, performance, and experimental art. Huddle (1961), part of the Dance Constructions series, involves approximately seven performers holding each other in a tight huddle. In turns, each dancer climbs over the others for a moment, creating a shape “like a small mountain”, in the artist’s words. The work turns the performers’ bodies into a sculpture, playing with the boundaries between subject and object. The metaphor relates to interpersonal bonds and collectivity, as well as the cycle of individually overcoming challenges, physically expressed in modes of weight-bearing and weight-sharing. Alongside choreographies, Forti developed an expansive drawing practice. In 1966, she made the Red Hat watercolour series, named after a hat she owned, which became metonymic of herself: “Somehow [the red hat] became the signature for this character, me, running over mountains, sometimes pursued by dark figures”. In assonance with her performances, her drawings tread the line between subject and object, emphasising a convergence between life and art.
This is the first time the work of Simone Forti is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Sofia Gotti
