Claudia Virginia Vitari | LOCKDOWN
From 31/03/2020 To 19/04/2020
LOCKDOWN is the first of the three on line exhibits of the gallery program that wants to adapt its way to this historical moment and, if possible, make people reflect and give some original and innovative points of reflection, that should be one of the the primary purposes of contemporary art, not underevaluating its consolatory power.
One of the most interesting aspects of the more than ten years Claudia Vitari research deals with the mechanisms of disintegration of the "conventional" society, for some subjects and its related recreation of new societies, through the phisical or mental closing of the human being, which state of "defunct" (broadly speaking) and consequent "release", are regulated by the "institution".
Vitari tells us about compulsory detention, mental deseases that often means a metaphorical prison but also real, and in worst cases, social death; she also tells about immigration that contains topics as closing of borders and confinement in refugees shelters are very close to the concept of this exhibit.
Vitari investigations take in consideration different phases:
- the LOCKDOWN, for the protection of the subject and the community "outside" and the dynamics of a compulsory isolation.
- the RECOVERY and the time needed to get it. When the subject is able to have his rights back and with what kind of rules? He will be really able to di it and what kind of tools he can use? Vitari investigates and records, without judging.
When is the "institution" that decides, the interpretation can't take in consideration the single case, because "the rule", born for the community, can't contemplate the "ad personam" care. And this is the moment where the artist intervenes, giving faces and voices to human beings that have a personal story, distancing them from statistics where they are the last for importance. Moreover, the titles of the works are often the true names of the interviewed and portraied persons, researching their identities, made of somatic features and a genetic stories, which can give them dignity as Human Being.
For LOCKDOWN, three projects have been taken in consideration, with some preparatory sketches for two of them and one complete installation: Percorso Galera (2007-2008), Le Città Invisibili (2009-2012), O-Platz.Identità Interstiziali (2015-on going).
For Percorso Galera (installation), the artist worked with some inmates of the prison in Turin "Lorusso and Cotugno", collecting thoughts, moods and documents through the interviews and thier faces realizing their portraits; the drowing are almost sketches, with the intention to express how limited was to time with the prisoner but also to underline the impossibiliy to know effectively who is sit in front of you. The installation is made of light boxes, silkscreening on different levels of resin and iron.
Città Invisibili represents Claudia second big project, imaginated, realized and produced in Barcelona, through a long and systematic attending of Radio Nikosia, the first Spaning radio station organized by persons with diagnosed mental deseases. On display, some preparatory sketches, silkscreening on rice paper.
The by now consolidated, methodic and punctual research work of the artist, that considers the evanishing of the borders between life and work, takes Claudia Vitari to deal with immigration and in particular in Oranienplatz, in Berlin, where a group of refugees, occupying the square, coordinated the project. Also for this body of works, on display preparatory sketches, silkscreening on rice paper.
Around 15 works will be exhibited, from April, 1-19 2020.
On demand, to deepen the work, extra video and pictures supports and to see the works in person, we will decide the possibility and the way, considering the evolution of the present situation.