a mio padre
Š 2007
b i bl i o t e c a d e l c e n id e of f i c e v ia st a z io ne 1 0 8 9 0 1 0 c a nn i te l l o ( r c ) + 3 9 . 0 9 6 5 . 7 0 0 4 9 2 p h/ fx it a lia
e d ito r ial staff via gar ib ald i 11 90133 p aler m o l s d stud io@ cenid e .net i talia
ww w. c e n id e .ne t in fo s@c en id e . ne t
Val er i o Mor abito Paesaggio NewYork Landscape NewYork
james corner 8 scribbling space valer io morabito 10 landscape new york landscapes
edit in g & g raph i c d esi g n
domenico cogliandro
13 nature
ph o to s
mariarosa russo
27 transparency
en gli s h t ra n slati o ns
giusy coppola p r i n te d b y
officine tipografiche aiello & provenzano
37 addiction 49 relationship
All r ight reser ved. The entire contents of this publication a re copyr ight and
59 surf ace
cannot be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without wr itten per mission from the publisher.
71 architecture
mar iarosa russo 84 the line of desire Fir st published:
July 2007
ISBN
978-88-87669-54-1
domenico cogliandro 90 other traces on the desert
The drawings of Valerio Morabito depict a frenzied, searching
His sketches record more the process and excitement of
form of space. It is as if the pen itself – as an extension of the
observation-in-time than the scenic fact of what is actually
james corner scribbling space
eye and the hand - is moving to find
observed. If Mondrian’s famous Broadway Boogie-Woogie depicts
registration, to find truth and insight.
the color and movement of the New York grid, Morabito’s scribbled index records a mental map of signs and registers that occur when
There is little forethought or pre-planning, just a temporal form
the ambulant visitor is on the street.
of automatic response, with the pen rapidly recording all traces of labor, construction and discovery Akin to the work of Cy Twombly,
These drawings are memory indexes and at the same time
Paul Klee, perhaps even the mark-making sketches of Van Gogh,
potential projections into new possibilities of space, perception and
Morabito uses the pen and paper to scribble space, generating
experience.
dynamic space from an often erratic field of marks, strokes, ticks, hatches and points. In turn, the automatism of the sketch produces
Morabito’s drawings are wonderful geographic expositions in the
lively and fresh perspective, sometimes novel, always alive.
tradition of field sketches and annotations. They are fascinating not so much for their representational status (what they depict or
Wandering the streets of New York City, the awestruck Italian can
what they signify), but more for their status as process works, as
not draw fast enough. In a sense, New York is itself an ongoing
scribbled traces-in-action that record the labor and discovery of
scribble of astonishing density and dynamism.
seeing through drawing.
It is a city of overbuilt marks, grids, openings, scaffolds, towers, textures, noises, moods, crossings, edges and movements. It does
That this is completely congruent with the frenzied experience
not stop. Morabito captures this energy in his drawings, scribbling
of New York City itself makes these drawings especially resonant.
the spaces of New York with the same intensity and animation.
They scribble space, not only as description but also as possibility.
Memory itself contains something that doesn’t belong to it.
Walking with a correct perspective relation of curves, it is easy to
An empty space, as indefinite space, pure and contaminated,
adapt oneself to the city of New York.
valerio morabito landscape newyork
accessible and inaccessible, black or white.
You would percept a landscape of a city which has its own half as
Memory as a container of events, each of which represents itself;
identity, half of the sky, half of the sea, half of the green; and every
forgetting the relation amongst things and urging casual relations
time you buy one half, the other half is given for free, as if it were
and unexpected strategies, using design as an instrument for the
a prize to faithfulness.
form of memory. It is time for walking, exploring, connecting and concentrating, stimulating, chasing and accumulating.
And if space and things followed one another, and if there were a rhythm among space and things, although invisible, and if there
Space composes itself, dominated by a nearby space baseless to
were a soft fluid between the invisible rhythm of things and space
things and to its permeability, locked within a complex condition
mouldable and deformable then the landscape would contain
of spaces and gaps, careless about its multiplication, schizophrenic
within itself the secret of synthesis.
to its proportions. No longer city and no longer architecture but towers, scaffoldings, It becomes consistent and hard stretching up to a breaking point,
lights, windows, frames, trees and asphalt, garbage, yellow taxis,
it almost breaks, it detaches, it slips a part: perhaps the extreme
glass, wood, cast iron, cast iron coated with layers of centuries of
point of the deception could be found.
enamel painting, rock, bricks, grids and stairs that climb along
Every street seems to reveal the secret of things, every street seems to
houses up to where possible.
retain the magic of things, and magic retains the streets. And if the
It is then enough to add half of the sea, half of the sky and half
streets had what is contrary to space, that is the gap, they could be able
of the green with casual touches of vortical waves or intricated
to reveal the arcane desire of cancellation.
ephemeral supports to build Landscape New York.