Direction (Direzione), 1967–68

[…] Starting in 1967, I began titling some works Direction in which magnetic needles were embedded in different materials, like Formica, wood, cloth, cement, stone, and earth. Although they were composed of different forms and materials, each piece always acquired a north-south orientation according to the magnetic needle and not according to the orientation of the enclosed space in which the work was installed. One of these Directions, from 1967–68, consisted of a cloth soaked in water so that it would stick to the floor, which I then spread out on the ground, pushing a glass beaker with a magnetic needle inside it in the north-south direction that the needle pointed towards. I formed a sort of trail that the energy of the magnetic fields, by continuing to orient the needle, kept alive.

Giovanni Anselmo