Where traces fade away

The title Contrazione della metafisica n. 2 (Contraction of the Metaphysics) immediately indicates the perspective from which to observe the white marble sculpture by Francesco Gennari. When something contracts its form wrinkles, its volume diminishes and its density increases. In the conception of this work, Gennari imagines a sculptural form that gradually implodes, in terms of both concept and form, shrinking into the form of the bone of an animal. The skeleton to which it belongs, however, is that of an imaginary beast: an impossible anatomy in which the bones represent the element of greatest density, as in real organisms. And since the animal exists only in the mind of the artist, the work functions as a clue to the presence of its maker in the world, thus revealing the reason that accompanies all of Gennari’s research: the desire to assert himself through a constellation of self-portraits. Amidst the sidereal geometries of his sculptures, the urge is fulfilled to confront the subjective space of the body and the emotions with the historical time of the reality that exists outside.

Through multiple languages of expression – from drawing to film, sculpture to set design – William Kentridge has constantly set out to explore the historical episodes of the 20th century, which still have an influence on the present. This has often implied coming to grips with works and artists linked to moments of the last century dense in political significance, as in the case of The Nose, the opera by Dmitri Shostakovich based on the short story of the same title by Nikolai Gogol. In 2006 Kentridge received a commission from the Metropolitan Opera of New York to direct a new production of the opera. For the occasion, the artist created an entire body of works, including the large tapestry City of Moscow (Map: Geodetic Bureau for the planning of the City of Moscow, 1940). What interests Kentridge is Gogol’s use of the absurd as a narrative device, an aspect that emerges if we examine the literary precedents from which the Russian writer took his inspiration: a passage from Tristram Shandy by Sterne (1759-67), and Don Quixote by Cervantes (1601). From the latter novel, Kentridge derives equestrian imagery reinterpreted in an anti-heroic tone. The black silhouette of the horse is superimposed on a map of Moscow from 1940, a city that was a theatre of upheaval in 20th-century European history, and a place where dreams of revolutionary change offered meaning to the lives of many, at first, only to abruptly collapse after Stalin’s rise to power.

Soundtrack for a Troubled Time is a sound installation that reflected on the movement of data and information in 2017. Cally Spooner created this absurdist sound installation during a period in which the aggressive and senseless use of language, moving on the incorporeal level of the word, had produced a "degraded" reality pervaded by an invisible violence. Without limiting itself to mere criticism of the election of Donald Trump, or indeed to any and all populist turns that were stirring globally – and digitally – at the time, the work conveys a sensation of being submerged by a deteriorated linguistic and political atmosphere: the two-channel audio track spreads the voice of a performer counting to twenty in Spanish into the space, while he is overwhelmed by buckets of water; at the same time, the clean, sharp thwack of a golf ball being hit passes through the environment. From a numerical, abstract and financial dimension, the sound acquires physicality and allows the body of the performer to emerge, who gasps and is no longer able to pronounce the words. Language becomes disjointed, while the traces of a restless reality begin to show; a body, implicated, submerged, can and will “act up” or “act out”. Spooner calls this work "a fiction", knowing that fiction is always only a few degrees removed from reality.

Since 2005 the US-based non-profit organization Fund for Peace has prepared an annual report, the FSI (Failed States Index, which has become the Fragile States Index), to monitor the vulnerability of countries to conflicts and economic failure. The artist Peter Friedl, interested in art as a critical tool through which to analyse reality, takes his cue from this document to demonstrate the ideological matrix behind such operations. The large composition titled Failed States, produced by current and former inmates of the Le Vallette prison in Torino, brings together 20 national flags. Playing in a cutting way with the name of the report, the work juxtaposes nations usually indicated as having a high risk of failure and others considered at lower risk. Also adding the flags of unrecognized states, and without stating the parameters of the selection, the artist unmasks the partiality of the document. The FSI is thus revealed as a means that takes a US-centric viewpoint, reconfirming the dominant geography of power year after year, excluding and labelling on the basis of parameters that are considered objective, but in the end are actually political and arbitrary in character.

Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Twenty Five (Motion Control / Mollino) is a 35mm film in which the movements of the camera trace the forms of an iconic chair designed by Carlo Mollino in 1959 from every possible angle. Throughout his career, Simon Starling has incessantly explored the figure of Mollino and his artistic and cultural legacy, establishing a dialogue on multiple occasions with the projects of the architect and designer from Torino. In this video, the act of observing the chair allows Starling to evoke the personality of its designer through movements of the camera. The progress of the shot reminds us not only of the arabesque, an emblematic feature of Mollino’s creations, but also the sinuous, curved trajectories of skis and airplanes, two of his great passions. Through the filmic gaze, Starling enacts an unprecedented and majestic interpretation, which shifts from an analysis of form to an act of homage in relation to its object.