Teresa Macrì's 'Fallimento' Explores Failure as Artistic Device

Teresa Macrì's book 'Fallimento' (Failure), published by Postmedia Books in 2017, redefines failure not as a concept but as an event, a temporal gap, or a 'device' that shapes existence. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze, Macrì argues that failure is what makes us human, acting as a dialectical force that separates and projects life into anachronism. The book positions failure as a dramatic, metaphysical rupture—a 'wound' akin to Samuel Beckett's notion of 'the sudden irruption of nothingness into the fullness of existence.' Macrì connects this to Harold Rosenberg's 1972 idea of 'de-definition' of art, where art negates itself to legitimize through doubt. The volume examines artists like Francis Alÿs, whose absurdist, illogical works are framed as 'alienating metaphors' that turn paradox into linguistic device, and Sislej Xhafa, whose détournements arise from conflicts between identity and non-identity amid migration. Macrì deliberately avoids aesthetic discourse, treating radical art as acts of resistance exposed to the risk of failure. Harald Szeemann is quoted: 'For me, failure is a poetic dimension of art.' The book also references Michel Foucault's 1968 conversation with Claude Bonnefoy about the 'beautiful risk.' Macrì's previous work 'Politics/Poetics' informs her view of failure as a politics of existence. The 172-page book costs €16.90 and is available at postmediabooks.it.