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Unicum I

...The unique relationship between artwork and individual:
their performance of one year later (1978, Galleria Civica, Modena;
also in Venice), stresses the unique relationship they wish
to establish with individuals rather than anonymous viewers.
The Unicum of communication they seek goes beyond
the mere confirmation of the need to communicate. The nature
of communication must be specified from their own point of view.

This could be watched by one person at a time through a small hole.
The rapport was unique and secret each time and its duration
was unforeseeable, determined not only by the scheduled
performance but also by the viewer's will to communicate.
The motif of the action was an incessant approach and retreat,
like two conditions independent of the space and size of the image,
whose span could shrink or expand with the aid of a mechanism.

This work posed an essential question. What is more significant
in the method to be adopted today-the reworking of the concepts
of image or space, their reduction or enlargement, their easily legible
or symbolic or conceptual form? The proposal that came out
of that question was their conviction that the problem may not
have rested solely on this question; that the most important element
was the crucial presence of the artist in the real and the imaginary
world in which he acts.
The conclusion from their experience was that the crucial time

of contact with the external world began with their action. Moreover,
this action did not stop at the end of the performance. Still images
from the forms of their action remained engraved in the viewer
because they were things he had experienced. They became
memories of live moments through images he had retained.
In a reverse process, the retrieval of those static images led again
to memories of action. This reciprocating function of their work

is also central to their latest project...

Efi Strousa

Athens, June 1980