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the imagination, including shapes, symbols,
and narratives. Thus, in Le tre cupole e la
torre delle lingue (2013), starting from the
analogy of the shape of three domes: the Dome
of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Volkshalle desi-
gned by Albert Speer during the Third Reich,
and the architectural space where the per-
formance took place, Presicce combined dif-
ferent narrative figures including King Solo-
mon, the Queen of Sheba, Hiram Abiff the
great architect Mason, and also apprentices
and builders of the cathedrals. Nevertheless,
these characters were not represented as such,
but in the form of figurative beings, in which
he blends the narratives and different symbols
linked to them. So, King Solomon is presented
in a half human, half architectural form. The
references are mixed up to the point of chan-
ging the shapes. Everything becomes figura-
tive, inviting us to move from one motif to the
next as if we were in front of a painting or a
fresco. We are decidedly in a pictorial space
and Presicce happily asserts his inheritance
from painting rather than performance. But
this painting is manifested in the real three-
dimensional space, which implies an activa-
tion of symbols like the stones suspended in
Santo Stefano, i coriandoli, le pietre (2015),
and a real confrontation of the work with the
viewer. Viewers are, in fact, always accompa-
nied individually into the performance, for a
minute, before being led back outside. In this
way, they are invited to penetrate the space
of the work, for an instant, abstracting them-
selves from the external environment. This
true and present course assures the link bet-
ween the outside world with its circumstantial
reality and the world without time within art.
Everything comes together in Presicce’s per-
formances to create in the work an atemporal
space. The immobility of the characters, the
visual image’s size, but also the sound envi-
ronment come together to create a tension
characteristic of all the performances of Pre-
sicce. The sounds, whether they come from
music, singing, or actual noise generated by
the movements, all have a repetitive and stun-
ning quality which gives an impression of the
infinite. The forms, often geometric, introduce
a visual tension that is enriched by the diffe-
rent materials of the fabrics and objects. In
this regard, it should be noted that Presicce
plans and designs all scene elements and ac-
cessories himself, which he restricts to use in
a single performance. Immobility, in short, is
never simply indifferent waiting. It always re-
flects the inner tension of the bodies, and tells
of their life. In fact, the postures favor the lif-
ting of a limb or of an object, which inevitably
means for those who enact them, a balance
must be held and a force exerted. On the other
hand, Presicce has worked on many perfor-
mances with students from different schools,
as part of a workshop called L'Accademia del-
l'immobilità. One of the works that resulted
from this collaboration, Fine eroica di un'im-
magine del Quattrocento (2015), is particu-
larly illustrative in this regard. In front of the
canvas Funerale di Togliatti by Renato Gut-
tuso, displayed at MAMbo in Bologna, and the
funeral procession which is depicted, the stu-
dents formed another procession, this time of
living bodies, all involved in the tension that
connects them to each other as in a pictorial
composition. The performance not only invites
us to compare the living retinue to the painted
one, but it provides an extension to the real
space in another dimension of time. As indi-
cated by the title, the work combines two ima-
ges: one of the 15th century (a miniature Pre-
sicce has kept secret, but has described
verbally to his students) and the canvas in
the museum, itself concerned with a real event
of the 20th century, the funeral in Rome of
Togliatti, the general secretary of the Italian
Communist party. The heroic quality of the
image from the 15th century passes through
its revitalization into new bodies. From having
