Screening Room: Simone Forti
The second chapter of Screening Rooms presents Simone Forti’s video work Zuma News (2014) alongside a selection of drawings by the LA-based artist, choreographer, dancer, and writer. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1935, Forti emigrated to the United States with her family in 1939. After studying with Anna Halprin in the late 1950s, she moved to New York, where she performed with Merce Cunningham Studios and met choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Steve Paxton. Forti went on to become a pivotal figure in the Judson Dance Theater community, and later return to Los Angeles in the early 1970s after spending a year in Rome.
video
12' 37"
From NONFICTIONS - a joint work by Jeremiah Day, Simone Forti, Fred Dewey
Filmed at Zuma Beach in Malibu, California, Zuma News records Simone Forti’s performative actions interacting with newspapers on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. This work expands upon the artist’s News Animations, a form of choreography she developed in the mid-1980s. In these works, Forti reads and responds to the headlines and information contained in newspapers; the news becomes the choreographer, determining Forti’s movements and speech. In Zuma News the improvised spoken word in News Animations is replaced by the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore.
This seemingly infinite series of performances started as an attempt to fully comprehend the news through improvisations
– Simone Forti
After meeting American composer and artist Charlemagne Palestine at CalArts in 1970, the two began collaborating on Illuminations, a series of performances based on the use of a common language between Forti’s circular motions and Palestine’s melodies. In conjunction with the choreography, Forti made a series of drawings in 1972 based on circles and numerology that functioned as scores for her and Palestine’s performances. Exploring the concept of improvisation and the dynamics of the circle, including centrifugal and centripetal forces, the drawings illustrate the duality of mental process and movement.
Ink on paper (Set of 4)
27 × 31,2 × 3,8 cm framed
In 1968, during the artist’s time in Rome, Forti first took interest in the movements and gestures of the animals she saw at the zoo; it was in this context that she began realizing her Animal Studies. These drawings, often accompanied by the artist’s notes and observations, capture the fluidity of captive animals’ actions, interpreting them as dances.
In this more recent series of drawings Forti made graphite rubbings of a frame found at a second-hand goodwill store. In these works the artist produced varying traces, from thin contours to hard-pressed strokes, which were influenced by manifestations of the artist’s Parkinson’s symptoms. Drawing is an integral part of Simone Forti’s creative process, and the visual elements found in Rubbings recall the spatial improvisations and gestures of her performances.