The work is composed of many layers of carpeting in red velvet, cut out to match the silhouette of the space between the furniture in the living room of the artist’s home.

Moquette: Stanza di soggiorno approaches the theme of empty space and the potential it implies: “In emptiness I see the ‘fulfillment’ of the work – the artist has written – because in the question, which is suspension and awaiting, the ethical thrust necessary for art is contained”.

“The void – he continues – is an interrogative dimension of what exists; it encloses my being in the sphere of certain problems that are therefore also a practical and deliberate life orientation, since they are related to the idea of ethical seeking of private and existential experience. The void is also a private experience that requires a closer, more intimate relationship with things” [Rita Selvaggio (ed.), “Alberto Garutti”, Casa Masaccio, 1997, p. 36].

Moquette: Stanza di soggiorno belongs to a group of works that approach the theme of private experience – works like Misure di mobili, Cristallo rosso and Specchi forati, which together with Moquette and Dedicato agli inquilini che abitano al di là del muro were shown in the solo show by the artist at Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno (AR), in 1996. Here the void is seen as a moment of catharsis of the intimacy of dwelling. So the act of measuring and tracing a space becomes a way of gaining awareness of that place and establishing a special relationship with it. The use of carpeting as a material capable of “absorbing” the sign of an experience, allows the work to remain suspended between science and subjectivity, between the analytical restitution of a space and the personal narrative of a place.