toryboard is the title of Elisabetta Benassi’s artist’s book for onestar press. I have a certain feeling when I meet artists of exceptional quality. There is something in their faces that moves me, like when I hear a perfectly tuned “A”. It’s like a weight settling. Doesn’t much matter what aspect of the artist we are talking about. How they eat, get drunk, write, draw, speak, make work. Betta’s one of those artists. Storyboard is the tale of the artist playing soccer with her alter ego, a football player remarkably similar to Pier Paolo Pasolini. Interspersed in the picture flipbook are scenes from films by the famous Italian comedian, Toto. They serve to create additional levels of dialogue, making for a story about a play about reality and fiction, about time and narration. Betta’s own storyboard is only partially written. Her tryst is with the Italianness of her past. With her male femaleness and her female maleness. With the films of her beloved Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the designed machines of her country, those fire-red superbly made cars and motorcycles, those automobile racing ramps, all called “she” in Italian. Betta is as beautiful as a Botticelli; hard and diaphanous at the same time. Her works, Storyboard included, have a particularly fascinating quality. They are able to synthesize the past, even quoting it deliberately, without resorting to nostalgia or imitation. They are artificial but completely natural. Her artworks are so realistic they seem like tools or machines, and avoid ever becoming metaphor. Yet, they remain poetic devices. Betta works with design, fashion, style and popular culture, but always in the name of art. Betta is a goal. Present tense poet, philosopher and practitioner, swiftly kicking straight into the net.
Cornelia Lauf (Rome)
Elisabetta Benassi
Storyboard (You’ll never walk alone)
Published February 2002
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