34INSIGHTIL MERCANTE modernspring 2007

Catriona Stewarttalks to Ptolemy Mann, a londonbased artist with architectural ambitions, who aims to make her woven art part of the buildings they occupy

Right:

Jack Lenor Larsen at

home in the Longhouse,

Long Island, New York

IN FAIR VERONA Italians were uncertain of Piero Dorazio’smodernist carpets when they were displayed at Il Mercante d’Oriente in the early 1990s. With Modernism back in mode, Ros Weaverfinds the climate is right for these woven works of art

In a narrow cobbled street in the historic city

of Verona lies Il Mercante d’Oriente, an

extraordinary shop where modern art meets

antiquity with panache. A stone’s throw away

is the famous house where tourists, choosing

to ignore the fictitious nature of Shakespeare’s

story, flock to rub the left breast on Juliette’s

statue for good luck in love. Tiziano Meglioranzi’s

is a story of love too. A love divided between

antiquity and modern art: ‘Two tribes, both alike

in dignity’. “When I’m travelling to buy antique

carpets,” says Meglioranzi, “I’m always drawn

to modern art galleries. It’s a passion.”

The sleekly designed shop is suitably

situated in an ancient palazzo at the end of a

street full of antique shops but conveniently

opposite the Palazzo Forti Gallery of Modern

Art. Inside the shop pre-Columbian artefacts

sit tastefully on plinths with backdrops of

carpets in wild splashes of colour, antique

Chinese furniture sits on suave rugs in

natural fibres such as hemp and nettle fibre,

ancient felt door hangings from Kirghizstan

are counterpoised by a rug made entirely of

used jeans. Meglioranzi’s attempts to combine

his two loves began in 1989 when he came

up with the concept of inviting artists to

design carpets which would be produced in
modern spring 2007

INSIGHTIL MERCANTE 35

‘Inside the shop pre-Columbian artefacts sit tastefully on plinths with backdrops of carpets in wild splashes of colour’

the east, reviving ancient techniques of dyeing

and weaving. The project was named Artep.

The first collaboration was with abstract

artist Piero Dorazio (1927–2005). Meglioranzi

and his colleagues found a group of Kurdish

families in a remote region of eastern Anatolia

bordering on Iraq who were willing to dust

off their old looms to produce modern art.

The five designs Dorazio painted were care

fully copied onto squared paper with each knot

marked out, and natural dyes were mixed to

the exact colours specified by the maestro.

The right quantity of dyed wool was measured

out for each carpet and put into a sack. “We

put in 15% more than was needed,” says

Meglioranzi, “Because we knew some would

be used for other things. We didn’t want to

end up with small carpets. Later we saw kids

wearing hats alla Dorazio.”

Each family was responsible for weaving a

limited number of carpets of only one design,

in this way, whilst never being quite identical,

each would have a consistent ‘personality’.

“When we arrived in a horse-drawn cart to

deliver the wool it was snowing.We were met

by a woman holding a chicken she had just

killed, the blood dripping onto the snow,”

Meglioranzi tells me.

Facing page:

Top:Il Mecante d’Oriente,

Verona showing collage

carpet by Anghi on the

floor. All carpets produced

by Artep

Below:Tiziano Meglioranzi

This page:

Top:Eclipsicarpet, Anghi

Below left to right:

Carpets based on tile

designs for church floors by

Luigi Trezza (1752-1823),

Graphic Collection