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Space DIY. Sculpture's possibility of determining a space is one of the crucial aspects, and after a certain moment it became my main interest. I think is more radical than the site specificity of a work, that sometimes can is pursued with a well written commentary. I mean something tangible and beyond the specific place, in a certain sense. What I mean here is the sculpture becoming a specific place wherever and not being a certain object in a specific place. Certainly this implies the sculpture to have certain characteristics such as flexibility, shape morphing and aggression. Basically are the funny elements that we find in viruses, which are meant for a specific environment, they look for it and they inhabit it adapting to the specificities of the host. Hopefully we'll get to the point a successful virus can get, that of destroying the host and move to another. Being this the approach is clear that these sculptures have to be programmed in a spread way, they can't be just objects that are passively placed in a dull white room and receive some attentions just because they are in the centre of it. We have to speak of architectural machines, able to morph and dictate new rules , spreading tensions and imposing a different category of space wherever they root, rotting the former space, following a lucky assonance.
The first experience I conducted in this direction has been a group project named “Unico Multiplo”, “Only Multiple”. In this occasion I worked alongside two great artists and old friends, Claudia Maina and Daniela Barulli. Since our works are pretty different we started with the only thing that was given and in common: the gallery space. An exposition space is not as neutral as we are used to think. It has anyway certain specific characteristics of size and height, shape, illumination, orientation and materials. All these defining elements will somehow partecipate to the result of the work and at the same time they constitute its physical limits. Also a gallery space has the mute implication of its history, all the things and venues that have been done and happened in that given space condense in what is the perceived history of that space. Memories that can be pleasant or negative but the audience that will participate to your show, that will become simply another piece of that jigsaw if you don't do anything to put the show somehow beyond or above the time experience. So we decided to attack architecture going inside and outside the space and to pierce time through. Daniela Barulli's work used to be drawings of perspective spaces obsessively accurate and golden section based. We decided to project them in three spots, so that they became like windows of light that effectively opened the space to an impossible outside and disarticulated its architecture. On my side I decided to alter the rather regular rectangular inner space by producing a circular sculpture, so that the shapes could collide and interfere more effectively. Round shapes don't create a mirror effect from straight lines so it is more difficult for a straight architecture to bond and strengthen with a circular shape and to submit it due to the larger scale. Also the sculpture was rather hi, like 2/3 of the ceiling, giving it enough momentum to push the audience eyes upward, actually creating a movement the was able to pierce the ceiling as well. The sculpture was a 2 meters radius ring standing on more than sixty 4 metres rods. Being so the structure had some interesting characteristics. It was self sustaining but the legs where flexible enough that people could walk in through the rods as if they where a curtain. Because of these solicitation and the general vibrations of the people touching it in any way, the sculpture was actually walking around for the whole show, slow, quiet and imperceptible but unequivocally. So that it was necessary to bring it back to the centre every now and then. Claudia Maina's contribution was about the mentioned necessity of ruling time as well as space. So she went through all the documentation of the gallery activity since its beginning and transposed the found images in diapositives. Then mounted couples of images on the two sides of a support made with chemical lights, those plastic blisters that shine of a colorful light when cracked. Then the whole thing was placed at the end of a thin iron wire, putting together a nice bouquet of radioactive flowers. Every person walking in the door was given one of this luminescent memorabilia a invited to place it over the sculpture. So progressively my new architecture of the space became the new home of the glowing memories of the older space, that was itself now a memory, annihilated and stripped by our intervention. And of course the hands of the people attaching the tiny memories where producing vibrations in the structure, concurring into my piece joyful ride around the room. The happening was repeated also the next week, so in this occasion there where the glowing lights along side dead ones from the previous week, as this lights last just some hours, as all lucky memories.
Another experience in this direction has been “Alive showgirl” in which I wanted to investigate the world of strip clubs. I imagined a wandering strip club, that could take place anywhere, intervening on an actual architecture to turn a spot into an hot spot. Therefore its structure is completely undefined, consisting only of wood poles and clamps, that can be freely arranged to build up a sort of shed and hang the sign. Again the architecture is the prey, the living flesh in which to inoculate a virus that transforms it, that breaks its previous coherent distribution and installs something completely autonomous. This structure was the adaptation of a study I was conducting on this possibility, called “Module” that then I enriched with the sign and two other props, a little lighted stage and a red feather boa. The though on strip clubs was that being them a market where some bodies are rented for a little excitement, I wanted to focus on the actual person that is there, swinging a feather boa splitting her legs on the ground as wide as possible or hanging from a steel pole. They are just moving bodies so I take then back to the complexity of the human dimension and for that purpose I use a little empathy trick, giving to anybody the chance of being on that stage, so that they could touch the completeness of the person performing, rather than simply its physical form. And also I wanted to create a displacement into the host architecture, having it to incorporate something that wasn't definitely meant to be there. Something that is usually a closed space, hidden by black windows and security at the door is now in the open, is now liberated and there is nothing that is forbidden to be seen as long as somebody wants to show it. The audience had a lot of fun jumping on the stage and showing off, singing, dancing, or simply taking a picture. |
