curated by Aleksandra Mir
07 > 09.2007
The Geniuses of Palermo
Do you remember the moment in the late 70s, when artificial insemination was invented, and women lined up to get pregnant with Genius sperm? Nobel prize winners, Athletes, Musical virtuosos all donated their sperm that women could mail order and administrate themselves. By now, a whole generation of artificially inseminated young Geniuses would have sprung up, but you may ask yourself, where are they all?
Four of them can be found in Palermo: Marco Barone, Giuseppe Borgia, Vincenzo Profeta, and Tothi Folisi, Alias, LABORATORIO SACCARDI. Awarded first price in the local talent contest for young artists, the Genius of Palermo not once, but twice (2003 and 2005, it launched their careers, brought them international acclaim and landed their artwork on the cover of Palermo¹s white pages,), they currently hold a record in their genre genius artists.
For me, having moved to Palermo from New York 18 months ago, to be invited to curate this new exhibition with LS has been both a great pleasure and, not an uncomplicated honor. My role is less that of a curator, than that of an older, associated artist one who is, importantly, female. As such, I was interested to know what kind of relations four younger men of their generation and geographical disposition would hold to women. I assigned them the title for the show Donna / Woman upon which they have jammed freely, exploring women in a multitude of ways: As intimate partners with whom they have personal relations, as distant unreachable objects of desire and loathing, as public personas, symbolic entities, as friends, and as enemies. They look into the female side of themselves and mirror womanhood within everyone else.
This past year has seen a stream of historical exhibitions in the western world dedicated to Feminist Art. As three generations of women liberated themselves from the patriarchy; demanded rights to vote, took professional position in society, asked for equal pay, insisted on sexual freedom, took control of their reproduction and decided over their own bodies, art was created that depicted this struggle with analytical tools as much as with passion and despair. But a year of historical celebrations in the art world a variety of questions: What of women today? Has feminism / technology / globalization changed women and their roles in society at all? If so, what have they become? And, how can this change be perceived and reflected back through the eyes of four young, straight, male artists? Men who spend most of their days not in the studio, but in front of live internet feeds, masturbating to prancing girl flashers from all around the world exposing themselves within their dorm rooms, via a screen that separates them completely and brings them closer to others, and us, than ever before.
LABORATORIO SACCARDI¹s recordings and exhibition of found material gathered from the web make for an intricate composition of roles and power relations. The video Bitch Invention no 1 (video, 01:29, 2007) situates itself within the traditional lineage of painting, acting along the historical construct of the male gaze and the female model, but presenting an amazingly dynamic interplay between the girls¹ initiation of the event on-screen, the artists¹ roles as passive viewers and active producers, and us, one step removed, viewing them view it.
So, what of woman today?
Through LABORATORIO SACCARDI¹s computer screens, woman seems an exotic animal worthy of study both for the pleasure of her physical form and for her captivating performance, as well as for the most incomprehensible aspects of her behaviour. In their own home video, Beautiful Fake (video, 08:54, 2007), they capture a giggly girlfriend as she in a gossipy fashion re-narrates from memory several months of action from her favorite soap opera, mixing her factual memories of the fiction with made up assertions of the all the complex relations within.
SACCARDI¹s childlike drawings created with colorful markers evoke the dynamic of childhood gender relations; the timid affection sparked by the little grinning girl Lucy in the sky with diamonds or the full on revelation of a youngsters lust in I¹d like to fuck all the grannies in the world. The paintings in the exhibition again target mythical and public figures worthy of critical scrutiny, featuring women such as Madonna (Madonna, acrylic on canvas, 20x20cm, 2007), Hillary Clinton (Alright Miss President, acrylic on canvas, 80x60cm, 2007) or Condoleeza Rice (Cowboy Be-Bop, acrylic on canvas, 20x20cm, 2007) in burlesque situations and throwing them from their thrones by reducing them to simplistic sexual creatures. Woman as a metaphor to nature is evoked in numerous ways, pushing a stale old naturalism to the level of refreshing absurdity. In In Utero, (acrylic on canvas, 30x40cm, 2007) an idyllic summery landscape is seen from the perspective of peeking out from a vagina, and in Ariel, (acrylic on canvas, 30x40cm, 2007) a horrified mermaid is prepared as a slab of fish ready to be eaten on a plate with a slice of lemon on the side one. Love in its endless forms and variations, as self serving, inclusive, brief, everlasting, casual or difficult is depicted in both drawings and paintings, with the culmination of the largest work in the show: Guernica Love and Peace, (acrylic on canvas, 300x200cm, 2007), where Picassos classic war scene has been inverted to a colorful girly hippyish orgy in cheerful pastels and inclusive of flowers, rainbows and naked breasts. However, in the least visible painting of the exhibition, tucked away in a dark corner high up above the entrance hallway, you will find a small portrait of Hitler as a woman, Kreuzubermalung, (acrylic on canvas, 18x24cm, 2007), combining the familiar moustashe with red lips. It may be a speculation on Hitler in drag, but it may well also be the scariest manifest of a Feminist claim to power coming to an uncontrollable conclusion.
For myself, a female artist with an established career, due in thanks to the abovementioned earlier Feminist achievements, to curate this exhibition, and thus allowing the stream of sadistic, sexist imagery and self confident, often arrogant attitudes of Laboratorio Saccardi to flow freely under my sanction, has, to say the least, been interesting. It has meant suspending for a moment the lessons learned by Feminism, in order to take a stand for male fantasies, fears and agencies, and to learn something new DONNA/WOMAN, according to LABORATORIO SACCARDI, Palermo, 2007. It is a curious place to be, and, paradoxically, a great power to have.
Thank You,
Aleksandra Mir, Palermo, July 5, 2007.
