19/11/19 @19h30
As part of the Loop City Screen program of 2019, Espronceda Institute of Arts and Culture presents November 19–23 “A Black Line Across the Page”, a project curated by Valentina Casacchia, including artists: Francesca Banchelli, Carlos Caballero, Keren Cytter, Alice Guareschi, Annika Larsson, Bruno Marrapodi, Lorenzo Montanini, Sharon Paz, Beatrice Scaccia. In November 2018 a group of four artists (A. Guareschi, B. Marrapodi, L. Montanini, B. Scaccia) along with the curator attended the residency of Espronceda Institute of Arts and Culture in Barcelona, reading aloud the novel by Georges Simenon “The Snow was Dirty” (1950). This debate led to a reflection on modes of storytelling and throughout the whole year they have been dialoguing among themselves to propose a perspective on how to narrate a story.
Within the wider topic of Loop Festival 2019’s edition “Even Outer Space”, this project reflects on being “outside” — both formally and intimately — of narration. Some of the works have been specifically made for this exhibition; others have been selected as relevant to the subject. The title recalls the gesture of underlining a page, highlighting something substantial, or yet erasing it, while quoting the major emotional colour (grey to black) used by Simenon in his novel. While living our days, we currently spend a good portion of time attempting to circumscribe, channel and orient, according to maximum sharing, the experience in its unfolding. As we move along a never-ending search towards the perfect label, we have crafted a personal language that often embodies a very large spectrum of feelings. Although we might have reduced this whole vocabulary first to captions, then to images and ultimately to little graphics (i.e. emoji), we still embrace the need for telling a story. Inspired by a re-reading of the novel “The Snow was Dirty” (1950) by Georges Simenon, the project gathers together a small anthology of video and animation by international artists who investigate modes of storytelling.
Some of them put their effort into the structure and formal nature of language; others, debating whether narration is possible or not, dig into the imperfection of subjectivity, the resistance of feelings, and the limits of communication when it comes to representation. While paying tribute to one of the greatest writers who ever existed, the novel focuses on the themes of human imperfection, discomfort, and failure lived through addiction and coldness — eternal topics that offer an active chance for reasoning, and raise the need to consider how we can truly build a narration today.
Artists’ profiles:
Francesca Banchelli (b. 1981, Italy): works with performance, video, drawings and paintings. Francesca Banchelli’s research results in a body of work that questions performative dynamics. The enhancement of gesture, accompanied by time and surfaces, results in the shape of a rhythm with which she faces conceptual encounters between matters, revealing the moment where a given context becomes an “event”.
Carlos Caballero (b. 1983, Cuba): the work of Carlos Caballero feels like a miniature universe, a world where everything seems in sync except that we — as spectators — will never be able to fully grasp it. In this whole, every painting, every drawing functions as a world unto itself. The contours of the canvas and the paper appear — without fault — to form the outer limits of the works, keeping the planes and figures together like islands and their inhabitants. Protected from the outside world, all the elements are kept in check on the canvas and never venture “over the edge”. The works suggest a spelling, grammar and vocabulary used to tell stories. Reminiscent of hieroglyphs or cave paintings, they appear to portray contemporary or future mythologies, looking for fundamental and universal themes that go beyond generations, cultures and languages.
Keren Cytter (b. 1977, Israel) creates films, video installations, and drawings that represent social realities through experimental modes of storytelling. Characterised by a non-linear, cyclical logic, Cytter’s films consist of multiple layers of images, conversation, monologue and narration systematically composed to undermine linguistic conventions and traditional interpretation schemata. Recalling amateur home movies and video diaries, these montages of impressions, memories and imaginings are poetic and self-referential in composition. The artist creates intensified scenes drawn from everyday life in which the overwhelmingly artificial nature of the situations portrayed is echoed by the very means of their production.
Alice Guareschi (b. 1976, Italy) currently lives and works in Milan. She graduated in philosophy at the University of Bologna. In 2005 she was resident artist at Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon in Paris; in 2008 she was awarded the Young Italian Art grant promoted by Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum; and in 2011/2012 she was the recipient of the Italian Atelier at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Solo shows include Galleria Alessandro De March (Milan), Galleria Sonia Rosso (Turin), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), DREI Galerie (Cologne) and Joey Ramone Gallery (Rotterdam). Group shows include Exit. Nuove geografie dell’arte in Italia, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin); The Final Cut, Palais de Tokyo (Paris); Aperto per Lavori in Corso, PAC (Milan); XV Quadriennale, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome); Disarming Matter, Dunkers Kulturhus (Helsingborg); Fantasmata, Arge/Kunst Galleria Museo (Bolzano); Il Belpaese dell’Arte, Gamec (Bergamo); This and There, Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard (Paris); Autoritratti, MAMbo (Bologna); Andata e Ricordo: souvenir de voyage, Mart (Rovereto); Tutta l’Italia è silenziosa, Accademie di Spagna e Tedesca (Rome).
Annika Larsson (b. 1972, Sweden) is a Swedish artist working mainly with film, video, performance and installation. She is interested in incidental but meaningful gestures and rituals, and in corporal-linguistic patterns of behaviour that conceal hierarchical social power structures. Her works have been widely shown internationally at institutions including Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel; Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Kunsthalle Nürnberg; ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; S.M.A.K., Ghent; and Musac, Lyon. She has participated in biennials such as the 49th Venice Biennial, the 8th Istanbul Biennial and the 6th Shanghai Biennial, among others. Larsson lives and works in Berlin.
Bruno Marrapodi (b. 1982, Italy) lives and works in Milan. A graduate of the Institute of Design, he further specialised in painting and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Drawn by a mix of local tradition and grotesque fiction, he developed an interest in crimes, cabaret and poetry. He has recently begun producing short films and radio broadcasts.
Lorenzo Montanini (b. 1980, Italy) is an Italian actor, creator and director. He studied with many artists in Italy and abroad, including M. Tarasco, B. Meyers, The Living Theatre, Milon Mela, E. Vargas, Teatro de Los Sentidos, A. Bogart and the SITI Company. After moving to the United States he studied cinema at the New York Film Academy and was the first Italian to be selected by the SITI Company to train with them at Columbia University and Skidmore College. He teaches and practises VIEWPOINTS training and the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, and has been directing an experimental bilingual laboratory of contemporary Chinese theatre for the University L’Orientale of Naples for more than 14 years, staging a new show each year that has never been published or staged in Italy before. He has directed shows at many festivals in Europe and America.
Sharon Paz (b. 1969, Israel/Germany): Paz concentrates all revolts and reigns of terror into one pars pro toto. She presents images of strong suggestive power which, due to their combination of fantastic landscapes, mythological motifs and modern-day objects, remain completely ambivalent with regard to the history of mankind. The aesthetic appeal of this artistic “narrative” lies in the discrepancy between the seemingly romantic scenery, the surreal composed landscapes, and the individual hyper-realistic elements that immediately activate the observer’s topical visual memory. Warships, protesters with raised fists, demonstrators with banners and flags, as well as people who practise their faith by kneeling down to pray, all quote the visual canon of modern-day theatres of war. Images showing a withered, burned tree, a figure with a telescope or possibly an anti-aircraft missile, a bulldozer, and planes shooting past in the sky immediately call Afghanistan to mind.
Beatrice Scaccia (b. 1978, Italy) is a visual artist and writer living and working in New York City. Originally from Italy, Scaccia studied Fine Art at the Fine Art Academy in Rome and Writing at the Minimum Fax Editor (Rome) and the Holden School (Turin). In 2006 she co-founded the non-profit art space INART with renowned artist Gino Marotta, where she served as Director and educator for five years. Scaccia’s practice has long been an amalgamation of the written word and visual language. Her visual works are part of many important private and public collections, including The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation. Her work has been featured in Artnet News, Flash Art, The Art Newspaper, Domus, Marie Claire, Arte Mondadori, Drome Magazine, InsideArt, Art Fuse, Sole24Ore, Exibart, Artribune and Espoarte.
Valentina Casacchia, art historian, curator and art advisor. She worked in Paris and New York for several institutions and modern and contemporary art collections: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Jersey City Museum, The Armory Show, Maria de Beyrie Collection, Gregory Callimanopulos Collection, Freight+Volume Gallery. Former collection manager of Mutual Art Europe, she is now project manager of Fornasetti in Milan.
