Deversoirs #4

In 1961, Alberto Moravia interviewed Claudia Cardinale. She is 23 years old and already a star actress in Rocco and His Brothers and The Girl with the Suitcase.

Esquire magazine commissioned this strange interview in which the writer, already largely famous, questiones the actress about her body, “as an object in space.”

Claudia: “The audience sees me as an enormous, imposing, very tall, majestic, monumental figure.” Moravia: “Do you like being perceived that way?” Claudia: “Yes, I like it very much.” Moravia: “Why?” Claudia: “Because I like being perceived as someone I’m not in my everyday life.” Moravia: “Who are you in real life?” Claudia: “In real life, I’m an ordinary girl, like all the others.”

Faced with Moravia’s questions, Claudia, initially intimidated, manages to give evasive answers, keeping to herself what the writer is trying to grasp.

Along with the aloud-reading, Italian artist Friedrich Andreoni lends his talents as sound composer, with Radha Valli lending her voice to Claudia Cardinale, while Claudia Squitieri (the actress’s daughter) takes on the voice of Moravia questioning her mother as a young actress.

Friedrich Andreoni is an Italian-German artist born at the turn of the last century, who grew up between the Middle East and Europe. He currently lives in Berlin. Friedrich Andreoni’s research questions the sculptural and psychological dimensions of sound and matter. Through various media, including sculpture, sound, performance, and video, he explores how these volumes inhabit the memory of space and time, moving between transmission and reception, event and trace, signified and signifier. His works are part of public and private collections.