Stella Stefania Gagliano studied Visual Arts at IUAV, in Venice, and graduated in Bologna at the Fine Arts School. At the same time she practiced theatre, dance and contemporary dance.
She paints on blank canvases nailed to the wall using clay and black charcoal, working on the individual, the human being, evil and madness as well as each peculiarity that makes us different from the rest.
Gennaro Maione got trained as a ballet and contemporary dancer at “Ballet Teatro Scuola Rossella Rossi” in Naples and in order to refine his skills attends seminars, lectures and workshops in Berlin at the contemporary dance schools Tanzfabrik and Dock 11 and in Brussels at DCJ contemporary dance school and Thor company.
His project Piel il.el takes its cue from the French novel by T. Jonquet “Tarantula”, then played in the movie by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar “The Skin I Live In.”
It is a performance on the theme of identity. What’s identity? Who can really know? Why is there still a need to confuse “gender identity” with “gender role”?
[…] Gender and sex are two separate things, even though the two words are often used interchangeably. Sex is a physical element whereas “Gender” is a component of identity which is placed in the brain.
Born in Oristano in 1986, Ruben Montini currently lives and works in Berlin. His artistic research, mainly focused on themes of gender, studies the implications of the radical and often violent language which has characterised feminist performances since the beginning of the 60s to queer themes.
Amongst his most recent appearances are the performance Cosa resta di noi – Requiem all’Oratoire du Louvre (Paris, 2015) and the collective Fuck Taboo, curated by Carlo Medesani (2013, Galleria Camera16, Milan).
I have always tried to catch the ‘short circuits’ of reality without altering their objective appearance. I try instead to let one feel at a second glance their waste, their boss-eye, their elsewhere. Since my first artistic research based on the relationship between body and architecture I have gradually moved to investigating social problematics such as: immigration, racism (Di-visione 2007/2010), fear and threat (Meteo 2004), national identity and the feminine condition (Le sfoglie di Garibaldi 2001) and lately, the problematic gender (Roll n’Roll 2009); installations or performances that often become photographic sequences and videos. The Fuoridentro series, through the recurrent motif of the mirror, involves its audience as being guilty of charge in its provocatory and irritating game. The game’s production is an interrogation on the threshold as changeable aperture-closure of the contemporary gaze. All my work is however created through dynamic ductility and leads to speculating on reality’s own perception and its possible translations; possibly a way of giving the spectator the difficult task of distinguishing illusion from reality. This spatial opposition is not just a physical condition, it is also a spiritual and cognitive one. The performative-relational aspect I have been experimenting in T(r)ATTO is the ideal following to the performance Looking for the body of the Artist, staged by me at the Galleria Martina Detterer of Frankfurt: the naked artist in a dark room as something invisible but tangible by the visitor/explorer.
With her English-titled project “Families of Choice,” Elisa Giuliano tries to explain the ever-increasingly cohabitations between couples of different nationalities. Asking herself what the family term meant nowadays, Giuliano asserts that Italy is a discriminatory country in which the idea “of the diverse” is still currently rooted within the average citizen’s views. Although the traditional concept of Roman-Catholic family is disappearing, Italy doesn’t seem ready to accept that two diverse individuals could be considered constituent of the same family – an opinion that grows even more critical when considering two same-sex individuals. Due to these prejudices many, still today, fight for their rights to be recognised. Thus, “Families of Choice” aims to show existing realities, families that aren’t recognised by the Italian State although existing in their daily life as such. It is a project revolving around all of those whose union is not legally recognised by Italy yet.
Since I was a child it has been clear to me how colours and images had a real impact on my imagination. The living proof being hundreds of my drawings collected by my family since my very first attempt.
Being born in Italy gave me an immense sense of expressive frustration. Enriching my visual sensitivity like a volcano, an enormous amount of ageless beauty flooded my imagination like a tsunami. All senses attacked, too much to take in, too much to process. A different kind of Stendhal syndrome, one that inspired me to draw, to paint, to visually scream but not to faint.
I continued throughout the years on an exciting journey of self-discovery and visual experimentation made up of drawings, paintings, videos, collages and pictures.
The journey continues….
Artist and performer, Pierfabrizio Paradiso lives and works between Milan and Berlin. He’s performed for artists such as Lothar Hempel (Giò Marconi, Milano), Ei Arakawa (Artissima 17, Sec. “The Dancers”) and he’s currently working for the Signa dance group (Copenhagen/Volksbühne, Berlin). He holds a diploma at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera [fine art academy of Brera] and he’s mastered in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at Naba in Milan, where he’s tutored projects in the Visual Arts department for a few years.
Central in his work is the reactivation of the usual as something unexpected, the rethinking of the void as a space of possibility for the collective construction of new imaginary in which artist and spectator aren’t holding any definite role – instead, they get involved in an horizontal and mutual exchange between each other.
Italiano