Ivana Spinelli

Critical text

The drawings of Ivana Spinelli (b. 1972, Ascoli Piceno) form part of ‘Zig Zag Protofilosofia’, a much larger research project in which she uses writing to restore value to ancient signs that have been removed and that float in a mysterious, visceral dimension. The pointed carvings that recall our letters V, M and W, were studied by the Lithuanian archaeologist and linguist Marija Gimbutas, who recognised them as a form of writing that precedes the cuneiform script and that comes from a matrifocal civilisation devoted to the cult of a goddess. The signs refer to the waves on the sea, to the curves of mountains, and to lightning, but also to branches or snakes. By means of repetitive manual writing exercises, the artist attempts to take possession of this feminine energy, which still permeates our unconscious, and to bring it into our contemporary world. There is no nostalgia in her artistic research, but rather a rewriting of a remote part of the world that has so far been ignored by certain interpretative canons. The artist also feels the need to shift the sign away from the paper—the sculptures thus become drawings in space and often need to be moved in a performative action. This always takes the form of an operation that does not aim for philological precision, but that is the result of a pressing need to access the potential offered by a world that is mostly unknown and lost.

Text by Letizia Ragaglia