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11/3/2008

Iaia Filiberti e Debora Hirsch

Room Arte Contemporanea, Milano

..........english below

"june allyson, born in 1917, actress, won the golden globe in 1952, 4 marriages, 3 divorces, 2 children, no more calls since 1955, only occasional nightclubs performances. martine carol, born in 1920, actress, 4 marriages, 3 divorces, no more spotlights after brigitte bardot arrival."

"frances farmer, born in 1913, actress, 3 marriages, 2 divorces, considered unreliable, alcohol and cocaine addicted, spent 11 years in a mental hospital by mistake. linda darnell, born in 1923, actress, star on the walk of fame, 3 marriages, 3 divorces, 1 child, died on fire watching a film in which she had survived from a fire."

Queste parole parlano di nascita e morte, di gloria e malattia, di celebrità e tragedia. Siamo tutti sottoposti al rischio che il nostro corpo o la nostra mente possa tradirci da un momento all’altro, così come una miriade di forze esterne – e tra queste spiccano i media – ci potrebbero elevare o far affondare. Al centro di questo potere mediatico troviamo la fotografia, così abile nel tessere reti magiche di desiderio alle quali nessuno può resistere.

In framed veniamo condotte dalle artiste a smascherare questa forza dell’immagine e vedere queste donne per quello che realmente sono, esseri a volte forti, a volte deboli, qualche volta fortunate, molto spesso no, ma tutte indistintamente unite dal fatto di aver sognato, per un periodo della propria vita, di far parte di quel mondo dorato, e tutte, invece, per svariate ragioni, hanno visto questo sogno svanire. L’immagine hollywoodiana, nella sua patinata e scaltra costruzione, appare eterna, come a proteggere la crudezza che incombe, invece, sulle persone comuni. Niente di più falso. La scheda tecnica che accompagna ogni foto delle star diventa una voce fuori campo che narra con freddo distacco gli elementi salienti della loro vita reale. Basta un secondo per smascherare l’allure delle immagini e vederle avvizzire come il ritratto di Dorian Gray, e ricondurci di fronte alla nostra vulnerabilità e fragilità.

La ricchezza dell’installazione, composta di preziosi ovali e da sontuose cornici, evoca la tradizione commemorativa occidentale. Le artiste vogliono farci accettare queste donne quali persone non diverse da noi bensì legate a noi, donne intrappolate dentro meccanismi e leggi di potere tali da renderle ancora più vulnerabili ed umane. Per enfatizzare questo status al tempo stesso simile e diverso, le cornici ovali di uso domestico sono state ingigantite e le immagini sono state curate e ripulite, elementi nodali di un crudele sistema insensibile come una rete o una macchina. Queste star, segnate dal destino, ben presto hanno conosciuto la rapidità con cui il sistema avrebbe accantonato le loro immagini su uno scaffale.

Framed, termine coniato da iaia filiberti e debora hirsch, definisce l’arresto della carriera artistica.

............english

iaia filiberti and debora hirsch present, the exhibition framed at room arte contemporanea

"june allyson, born in 1917, actress, won the golden globe in 1952, 4 marriages, 3 divorces, 2 children, no more calls since 1955, only occasional nightclubs performances. martine carol, born in 1920, actress, 4 marriages, 3 divorces, no more spotlights after brigitte bardot arrival."

"frances farmer, born in 1913, actress, 3 marriages, 2 divorces, considered unreliable, alcohol and cocaine addicted, spent 11 years in a mental hospital by mistake. linda darnell, born in 1923, actress, star on the walk of fame, 3 marriages, 3 divorces, 1 child, died on fire watching a film in which she had survived from a fire."

These words speak of births, deaths, awards and illness, stardom and tragedy. We are under threat by our own bodies and minds that at any moment can betray us, as well as by a myriad of unwieldy external forces that have the power to raise us or sink us, the greatest power lying in the hands of the media. At the heart of mediatic power is the photograph, cunningly able to weave its web of magic and desire over even the most resistant of critics.

We are led by the artists to unmask the forces at work in the image and see these women for who they are, individuals at times strong, at times weak, at times fortunate, at times not, who in one phase of their lives sought to be a part of the brave new media world, but for one reason or another, abandoned that dream. The carefully and shrewdly constructed photographs of Hollywood studios have a quality of permanence, as though somehow protected from the cruelties that hang over the ordinary person. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Each star’s photo is accompanied by a text, whose cold indifference you can almost hear as a narrational voice-over giving us a glimpse into their real lives. It takes but a second to unmask the lure of the image and see it shrivel up in our minds like the portrait of Dorian Gray, and we find ourselves facing our own vulnerability and ephemerality.

The elaborately presented, oval images connect to western memorializing traditions. The artists want us to accept these women as people no different from us, somehow related to us, who were drawn into an elaborate forcefield of power and interest that rendered them even more vulnerable. In order to emphasise their similar but different status, the domestic frames are blown out of scale and polished, serialized, nodes in a system as merciless as a grid, as merciless as a machine. These stars, as fate would have it, very quickly learned how suddenly the system will return their images to the mantelpiece.

Framed is a word coined by Filiberti and Hirsch that means “the sudden interruption of an artistic career.”

Opening mercoledì 12 marzo 08 alle 18.30

room arte contemporanea
via stoppani 15/c (angolo eustachi), Milano
da lunedi a sabato h. 11 alle h.19 (e su appuntamento)
ingresso libero

stampa

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