Per filo e per segno – 6/12. Paola Pezzi

Paola Pezzi

Mobilità fissa

2015-2025

installation consisting of two elements:

2015

canetè ribbon on plywood

27 x 24 x 2 cm

2025

felt

190 x 100 x 12 cm

 

From June 6th to July 2nd, 2026, BUILDING BOX presents the sixth installation of the exhibition project Per filo e per segno. Percorsi di arte tessile in Italia with the installation Mobilità fissa (2026) by Paola Pezzi (Brescia, 1963), which comprises two works by the artist.

 

Created a decade apart, Paola Pezzi’s two works [Passameneria rossa (2015) and Feltro rosso (2025)] represent a consistent and ongoing exploration of the relationship between gesture, material and time, the founding principle of her work: an uninterrupted process of transformation in which each work interacts with the previous one, in an organic, fluid development characterised by continuous metamorphoses.

 

Paola Pezzi’s works are constructions that treat simple materials—from felt to rubber, from polyurethane to wood—or domestic objects (pencils and woollen gloves) as if they were bearers of memory and energy. Folded, compressed, and wrapped through repeated gestures, each of her works makes time visible and retains the traces of the gesture.

 

In the works exhibited at BUILDING BOX, spirals, circles, spheres and whirls emerge as archetypes. The act of wrapping, present since the artist’s early days in the 1980s, is not merely an expression of an artistic practice capable of mastering the material, but also of a form that constantly speaks to the dimension of becoming, to that expansion into the infinite at the heart of her poetics. This is clearly demonstrated by Passamaneria rossa (2015), a small piece created by wrapping red canaté ribbon, and Feltro rosso (2025), a work measuring almost two metres and conceived specifically for this occasion, composed of felt spirals of various sizes. Felt, previously used in the 1990s, returns in a renewed form, with textures that unfold in space with absolute expressive freedom.

 

“From Lenci cloth to felt, trimmings, treated fabrics and rubber, works emerge in which action and movement are defining elements, becoming ‘force fields’,” says Paola Pezzi, “where the movement still in progress is fixed within the work’s space and propagates, permeating the environment.”

 

By blurring the boundary between painting and sculpture and merging the three-dimensionality of the object with a two-dimensional perspective, the artist creates lines and forms through volume, expanding the space through the magnetic pull of his works. In these works, the rejection of the material’s original function reveals its full potential for possible forms and meanings, blending gravity and lightness, physical resistance and the harmony of movement.

 

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From January 15th 2026 to January 7th, 2027, BUILDING BOX presents Per filo e per segno. Percorsi di arte tessile in Italia, an exhibition project curated by Alberto Fiz involving twelve Italian artists from different generations, invited to reflect on the theme of contemporary textiles. Throughout 2026, the exhibition will offer a selection of tapestries, clothing, installations, sculptures and site-specific works in twelve individual monthly installations. The artists featured in the second quarter of the exhibition project are Antonio Marras (Alghero, 1961), Maria Lai (1919–2013), and Paola Pezzi (Brescia, 1963).

 

The last decade has been characterised by an increasing focus on textile art, which has established itself as one of the most vital languages of contemporary art. The reasons for this can be found, first and foremost, in its ability to restore a central role to the matter and the body in an era dominated by digital technology. Although the use of textiles is nothing new – just think of the fabrics of Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), the carpets of Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) or the tapestries of Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) what has emerged is an unbiased, often provocative and transgressive process that has involved contemporary artists and, at the same time, has made it possible to highlight some central figures in art history, especially women, who have long been marginalised.

 

Furthermore, the uniqueness of textiles lies in how they have given rise to an autonomous language, with its own expressive matrix understood as a critical device capable of questioning all forms of hierarchy, according to a renewed awareness that can be traced back to the 2017 Venice Biennale, Viva Arte Viva, curated by Christine Macel, who had built her reflection starting precisely from textile art.

The exhibition project presented by BUILDING BOX aims to connect Italian artists from different generations by developing a fluid, all-encompassing journey that highlights the potential of a versatile, malleable and environmentally sustainable material, where tradition, memory and modernity intersect without rigid formalisation. At the same time, fibers, textures, knots and weaves become relational tools capable of redefining space and the relationship between individuals.

Per filo e per segno aims to make an innovative contribution to the debate on textile art, which on this occasion develops around different perspectives, offering a broader vision with the inclusion of a variety of works such as tapestries, clothing, installations, sculptures and site-specific works, many of which are new projects created specifically for this occasion, confirming how fabric is not only a technique but also an innovative approach to reality and image. Beyond the poetic and stylistic prerogatives, there is a unifying feature that can be traced throughout the exhibition, namely the intimate, in some ways autobiographical, aspect of the research, which is not without attention to the manual component, radically opposing the standardisation and dematerialisation of contemporary society. Per filo e per segno therefore aims to be a meticulous and detailed journey that contemplates the minimal unity of the textiles and the pattern that emerges when the threads are woven together. All this with the aim of generating a new plot through twelve chapters. The three artists hosted during the first quarter were Numero Cromatico (an artistic collective founded in Rome in 2011), Paola Anziché (Milan, 1975), and Maurizio Donzelli (Brescia, 1958).