Pascal Tassini

Pascal Tassini was born in Belgium in 1955 into a family of three children. He lived with his parents until they died, when one of his brothers took responsibility for him and sent him to the Créahm workshops in Liège in 1986.

Tassini, who tidies obsessively, initially contented himself with neatening the studio until he stumbled upon the reproduction of a sculpture in a catalogue of an exhibition of African art. He then began working with clay before trying his hand at drawing and painting. At the same time, he began stealing chairs and other material which he used to build a hut within the studio. Its structure changed constantly with the objects he was given as gifts and those he hunted around for. They were bound by a tangle of fabrics (his studio companions’ work clothes) all tied together. Teresa Maranzano compares this private space to Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau. He welcomes visitors to his den on condition that they undergo a medical check-up. Presenting himself as Doctor Tassini and wearing a white coat, he takes their pulses and cures all ills.

For the past ten years, Tassini has worked only with textiles, switching between the clothes he makes, like brides’ dresses and headdresses, the decoration of his hut, and wrapping for objects such as those Judith Scott made. He intertwines scraps of material to make a webbing with numerous outgrowths, and writes letters consisting of the same letter of the alphabet repeated over and over. He signs with two interlinked rings.