Events/Openings

Kunstverein Milano and Zirkumflex present an artist’s book Much less than Useless by Federico Cavallini, with textual contributions by Jimmie Durham and Angelika Stepken and published by KV Publishing.

Booklaunch accompanied by an intervention by the artist.

Much less than Useless is a visual account in which the narrative slowly gets lost as one leafs through the pages; a voyage of images to be experienced as a visual drift along, unfinished or incomplete, works of art that are constantly mutating. Starting indeed from the cover image, race horses are part of Cavallini’s biography: a childhood spent in equestrian centres all over Italy with a family of betters, trainers and horse lovers.

Besides happy memories, there are also recollections of fatigue and suffering for the competitive nature of the races. In Cavallini’s words: “to arrive faster than the others at an imaginary line, that, moreover, is a human invention […] I’ve always thought of the photo finish line, in any sport, as a useless aberration.” The absence of all the usual reassuring handles of a book, such as an introduction, captions, explanations, leaves space for an organic and individual reading, where each one of us finds their own cognitive route, (re)organising information from one moment to the other, decoding the endless details contained, and possibly losing oneself on the way. Much less than Useless is a book that reconstructs a creative process and an artistic methodology that cannot directly be traced back to the final work of art.