Artists: Monia Ben Hamouda, Vitaly Bezpalov, Alessandro Di Pietro, Jibril Esposito, Michele Gabriele, Dorota Gaweda & Egle Kulbokaite, Lucia Leuci
Exhibition title: Assiette ou Virage et Dérapage
Curated by: Something Must Break
Venue: Via Pontano 35, Milan, Italy
Date: November 14, 2017
Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists
Note: Press release can be found here. Text by Natalya Serkova can be found here
Nomadic, fulfilling disposition of non-familiar shapes: Assiette ou Virage et Dérapage.
I
Inspired by the documentation modality used to describe an art work through its details, “Assiette ou Virage et Dérapage” is a project anchored to the idea that the Minor Circumstance of such images often exhibits the most material and fulfilling aspect of the object, letting visual pleasure have the best on the imaginary / imaginative concept of the artwork.
Obliged to relate to a restricted space, cynically sensual already, seven artists dialogued with the exhibition space cannibalizing an aesthetic that we all know and which we has been influenced and sometimes distracted in these years.
The hateful, common, coarse, and deplorable mistakes that inspired this project are essentially two: How does an installation view reveal of the project, the curatorial thought, and the gallerist ambitions? And how often does it only show the depressing interior designer ability of the curator and the proud complacency of rampant estate owner?
And when it comes to the artist: sure to choose from the dozens of photos of details the one that can best express the concept of the work, he is instead distracted as a child by the twinkle of a chromed metal, excited by the curve of a a form that reminds us some car advertising.
The art works are the center of any topic that interests art, but they are often misunderstood and then chosen for the most simplistic and approximate reasons.
The operation is simple and mocking. The viewer is made responsible.
Will he stop on a superficial and consolatory reading? Let him. Everything is in order and prepared for this to happen, because he does not bother too much and convinces himself that everything is fine.
Perhaps he would prefer to feel cuddled by those images he recognizes and loves. That he needs.
Satisfying and feticist images.
”A motorcycle continuously multiplies itself in all this shining and noise, capable of taking on new parts that are willing to be absorbed, and expanding itself to an unknown extent. But given this expansion, does the motorcycle remain what it used to be before? […]
If Thumbelina had to travel not on the back of the swallow but by a motorcycle, she would have hardly managed to keep her wedding dress and her tiny bows unrumpled. […]
The mutation can escalate to such an extent as to make it impossible to tell whether it is a parasitic outgrowth, hiding among the parts of the vehicle, or a vehicle that has become a parasitic virus of a weird shape that eludes the logic of functional driving.
It has become impossible to separate the parts from their bearer, because the bearer is now little more than a sum total of its constituent parts assembled in a somewhat random manner. The infinite expansion and annexation of yet more parts prompts an incessant renewal of the entire body. We are no longer sure which point in time and space we should select in order to be able to give a proper name to whatever it is that we are facing. […]
Will the multiplication of these surfaces and of their shine turn into the multiplication of their deceptions?
Or, taken to extremes, thus will detonate the logic of the vehicle from within, unleashing the powers previously hidden inside? Thumbelina landing happily on her swallow next to an elvish prince notices a brand new bike behind his back.”
(Natalya Serkova)
Dangerous double curve, the first to the left.
Something Must Break
2017
Lucia Leuci, Senza titolo creolo, 2017, (Silk, acrylic paint)
Vitaly Bezpalov, Represented as fleeing, for he has laid sacrilegious hands on the object once hallowed by life, 2017, (drawing on scotch tape)
Michele Gabriele, Sleepy Spoony (Why don’t you go back to sell your fucking shaboo and leave us alone?), 2017, (Fortune cookies, marijuana, dollars)
Dorota Gaweda & Egle Kulbokaite, YGRG 145, 2017, (Embroidery and starch on cotton t-shirt)
Assiette ou Virage et Dérapage, 2017, installation View, from left: Vitaly Bezpalov, Dorota Gaweda & Egle Kulbokaite, Michele Gabriele, Monia Ben Hamouda, Lucia Leuci
Monia Ben Hamouda, It was right / Even though it felt wrong, 2017, (Pigmented silicone, hair gel, water)
Alessandro Di Pietro, Bruce, 2017, (Steel, glass screen, magnets, 3d print, batteries)
Jibril Esposito, Doublepenetration, 2017, (Smartphone stand for bikes, synthetic ebony, blood)
Assiette ou Virage et Dérapage, 2017, installation View, from left: Monia Ben Hamouda, Lucia Leuci, Jibril Esposito, Alessandro Di Pietro, Michele Gabriele, Dorota Gaweda & Egle Kulbokaite, Vitaly Bezpalov
