The weft of that “no!”
Sartorial work and thinking.
In the photo, a detail from ‘Child and aunt’ (1940) Paul Klee[1] on the cover of ‘Inherit from a child. Why not ?’ by Marina Bilotta Membretti - ‘NeP edizioni Srls’ (2024).
To benefit from one’s calling [2] / 44.
“As defined by the International Council on Archives (‘ICA’) : ‘the archives are the documentary by-products of human activities, preserved for their long-term value. Documents created in the course of daily life and actions of individuals and organizations offer direct insights of past events’[3] …fashion archives could be considered similar to databases, intended as collections of works, data or other independent elements systematically or methodically arranged and individually accessible by electronic means or in another way’”. [4]
Memory, which our work of thinking incessantly draws on, we know, is a laboratory which not only selects archive raw materials but also compares and continuously updates them from reality: a quality of memory unimaginable only fifty years ago and still unprecedented, but that special laboratories are already putting it to good use. A thin, but dense and conspicuous niche concerns Haute Couture, which has always been demanding in encoding artefacts that are unique, and the realization of which may require a deviation from the initial design which overlooked some, even correct, solutions[5] : a strong memory, such as the new digital archives, allows you to draw on materials that prove unalterable, therefore highly trusted. And to the designer, as to the researcher, a proven reliability is essential to arrive to increasingly consistent hypotheses: sartorial work, even more than artistic tout-court and however in harmony with other applications, repeats the work of thinking in one’s dealing with, and sometimes even in getting to disentangle memory.
The particular in the detail photo, taken from a work by Paul Klee, is relevant because it places itself at the limit with the fabric knitting that allows the ‘incipit’ of a model, and irreplaceable support of this, otherwise destined for pure imagination, without any feasibility.
Can be represented one’s thinking when exposed to the pathological contingency of a consequence of anguish ? And can be represented the forcing of one’s thinking, and grinning in spite of oneself, from a censorship then caesura that slides into fragmentation, at first alleviating but gradually detaching from reality, what prevents the synthesis and therefore the fruition ? Here Paul Kleee touches, and immediately returns, that flash of less than a moment which precedes the knotting of an already compromised thinking: followed by a compulsive giving way to the thinking of others, in an overall hasty but unspoken work of that certainly crucial and painful step which Freud named removal.
Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – February 13, 2025
TutorSalus.net - Freudian journalism
[1] Paul Klee (1879 – 1940) was a protagonist of Abstractionism, which also in painting follows the free flowing of imagination : in 1911 Klee founded with other artists the group ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ (The bleu knight), in 1914 he exposed at Berlin together Marc Chagall; between 1916 and 1918 he is called to arms but he doesn’t interrupt painting; in 1920 he inaugurates at Munich his first real painting exhibition; the school, then academic at Düsseldorf, experience to which he was invited by Walter Gropius, ends in 1933 whit his own resignation due to the criticism received from Nazism. His passion for music accompanied him in facing the knots in painting. Since 2005 has been open at Bern the ‘Zentrum Paul Klee’ that exposes only his works.
[2] www.tutorsalus.net/index.php/en/pensare-da-partner-2/358-psychoanalyst-and-profession-1
[3] ‘Archivi di moda: aspetti di proprietà intellettuale e tutela dei contenuti’, Avv. Giulia Affer in ‘AES Arts+Economics’ #16 - Ottobre 2024, p.65 (‘ICA International Council on Archives’ was founded at UNESCO in 1949), p.65.
[4] ‘Archivi di moda: aspetti di proprietà intellettuale e tutela dei contenuti’, Avv. Giulia Affer in ‘AES Arts+Economics’ #16 - Ottobre 2024, p.80. See also Art.2, comma 1, n. 9 L.633/1941 on the copyright.
[5] ‘Moda e memoria: gli archivi come fonte di ispirazione e innovazione’, November 25th, 2024 - ‘Open Care’ Milan.