HELEN DOWLING
Lissencephally – Breaker
Art is a private matter
Helen Dowling, Breaker, 2008 – Video HD, dual channel, 2.47 Minutes
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OPENING: Saturday, 27 March 2015 – h 9.00 pm
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The British artist Helen Dowling, invited to participate in “Art is a private fact”, will present a preview of two videos:
“Lissencephally” 3.49 minutes
In Lissencephaly the speed of the footage has been manipulated to periodically synchronise the movements of a mentally disabled man (the artists younger brother) on the piano with the audio of a classical piece of music played by Glenn Gould. The brothers’ hand moves together with music that in reality he can never play. The technique of manipulating time makes an incurable condition ‘work’ within the malleability of video. A closer look at the movements and facial gestures of the piano player bare witness to the impossibility of the task that the music suggests. Moments where the protagonist looks to the artist beside the camera makes reference to a relationship surrounding the work but that is now also captured within it. Moments when he looks directly in the camera show his recognition that it is recording. At the same time as he is performing for for the artist (his sister) he is also performing for an unknown audience.
Helen Dowling, Lissencephaly, 2008 – Video HD, dual channel, 3.49 Minutes
“Breaker” 2.47 minutes
In Breaker, the artists older brother, who has cerebral palsy, and a breakdancer attempt to copy and interpret each others’ physicality through a series of movements. The result is a video that blurs the boundaries of what should and can be copied, learnt and taught. Mimicking another person carries references to both flattery and cruel behavior. Using this double meaning the artist turns the act of copying someone who is disabled into an act that is challenging and something that could be admired instead of
evoking scorn or pity. To structure the exchange the two men were given a series of exercises to copy from each other. The preparation of these exercises were filmed as well as the exercises themselves, inevitably capturing the relationship between them and the camera which was also edited into the final sequence. Including these moments show the protagonists not as fully formed characters but as individuals represented in moving image.
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Art is a private matter
Curated by FRANCESCO PANDIAN e MARIA ROSA SOSSAI
Art is a private matter. In recent decades, art has transformed into a public arena that involves a growing number of people and professionals in the sector, thanks to the growing interest and attention of the media and the market that have emphasized its commercial aspect. This economic-strategic state of the arts produces what Paolo Virno defines as an infinite proliferation of differences of the multitude, which is counterbalanced by the intimate and personal sphere of the aesthetic dimension, or rather a notion of complex and explicitly non-essential subjectivity. Art therefore qualifies as an individual’s tension towards an infinite and non-apparent becoming. To be part of it and make it come true, it is necessary to recognize this vocation in us and prepare ourselves to accept it. In the wake of conversations around these themes, Francesco Pandian and Maria Rosa Sossai invited four artists to occupy the gallery for one evening and to recreate the uniqueness of the creative moment, an unrepeatable here and now that allows that kind of sensitive experience that follows development of the artist’s thought. During the first four meetings focused on the relationship between art and music, private biographies, sound creations, moving images, live actions will stage different forms of individuality to reaffirm the centrality of experimentation and the sensuality of the aesthetic experience that it still maintains today. the characteristics of a substantially private and subjective fact, extraneous to the reproductive processes typical of the exhibition context.
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