Talk to me about Elena
People like Elena Guaccero continue to live and speak to us through the works they left behind.
But they also do so through the memories of those who knew them, the thoughts of those who did not know them but would have liked to, and the emotions that their works continue to produce.
This is why we have created this space, ‘Talk to me about Elena’, so that anyone who has met her, crossed paths with her, even just seen her or felt emotions looking at her creations can, if they like, tell us something about her. We will thus add pieces to this album of ours that will evoke unusual, strange, and sweet images and memories.
Childhood Memories
I always feel strong emotions when I think of and see the works of art created by Anna Maria and Alessandra’s mother. They awaken memories of when I was a child and I used to see her leaning over her table having fun with stickers of all sizes and colours, creating fantastic stories or retelling…
An Independent Woman
It is fascinating to write about Elena Guaccero again after 14 years, when I graduated in cultural heritage conservation at Ca’ Foscari with a thesis on her. Thinking back on it now, as I am writing these words, I think it was she who planted in me the seed of curiosity about all the ‘industrious’…
Elena and the Meaning of Things
I have always thought of Elena as a researcher, a sort of speleologist curious about the meaning of things. I am not ashamed to say that as a child I imagined her wearing an explorer’s hat armed with chisel, compass and magnifying glass. Yes, because it always seemed to me that playing, colours and stories…
Memories
One of the last times I saw my sister-in-law Elena, she was sitting in her dining room with sticky paper tape in her hands. She had turned her dining table into a workbench and on the protective sheet she had scattered an assortment of rolls: from toilet rolls and paper towels rolls to stiffer cardboard…
Elena’s Alphabet
Elena's alphabet is a whim, an artistic whim. She succeeds in translating a system of graphic signs, in itself abstract, into visual representations with an immediate expressive impact, drawings in brilliant colours that draw on a collective, historical, familiar imagery – making us participants and accomplices – and at the same time an imagery that…
Beauty in a Memory of Elena Guaccero
I had the privilege of meeting Elena Guaccero in the early 1990s. Her house, as often happens, spoke of her even before I met her. It was a particular house, something beautiful but unusual, a modern and elegant imprint, different from the other houses I had seen in Venice. Colour was a very important element,…
The Architect’s Divertissements
A Tour of Elena Guaccero's Home and Studio 29-30 May 2023, Association of Friends of Venetian Museums and Monuments For members of the Association of Friends of Venetian Museums and Monuments, entering the fantasy world of Elena Guaccero was a privilege. It was a special visit made possible by the generosity of her daughters Alessandra…
My Elena
I never met Elena, and it is one of those emotions that I regret not having experienced. My relationship with her began by chance. A few months after she had passed away, I was politely asked for my opinion (as if I were Federico Zeri!) on the “little paper works” and “little wood works” she…
Beyond form
The squaring of the circle is one of the three famous geometric problems of antiquity. Dating back to the origins of geometry, it kept mathematicians busy for centuries with the aim of forming a square with the same area as the circle. The two most influential Greek philosophers in history, Plato and Aristotle, considered geometry…