2004 -THE SATED BANQUET-circular installation, diameter 300 cm

“IL BANCHETTO DEGLI SFAMATI”

“THE SATED BANQUET”

WHEN YOU GET TO OWN SOMETHING OR SOMEONE OR TO BE TOTALLY OWNED

THIS SOMEONE OR SOMETHING DISAPPEARS…

TEETH CHEW MEMORIES WITHOUT MEMORY

WHAT’S LEFT OF THE IDEAL IN THE FIGHT?

TO WHATE RACE–TRIBE DO YOU BELONG? IN THE NAME OF WHAT?

IT’S LIKE EVERY HEAD HAD A PLACE, A “LOOP KNOT” OF ITS OWN,

BLOCKED BY A PERSPECTIVE FROM WHICH IT OBSERVES…

RITUALS

RHYTHMS

IN AFRICA THERE ARE MASKS THAT MARK, SYMBOLIZE MOMENTS

OF LIFE AND DEATH…

IN THE SOUTH OF ITALY THERE ARE FIGHTS RESEMBLING TO DANCES,

WHERE PEOPLE TOUCH ONE ANOTHER,

GRAZE WITH FINGERTIPS

AND SMILE TO EACH OTHER.

EYES AND MOUTHS CLASHES AND MEET.

THE GAME RISES FROM A CHESS MATCH

THE PIECES ARE SLOWLY EATEN.

THE MOUTH SWALLOWS EAGERLY THE OPPONENT,

THE EYES ANTICIPATE MOVES, STUDY THE STRATEGY…

VIRTUAL IMAGES INTERRUPT THE PHISICITY OF THE DUEL

MAKING THE KNOWLEDGE

POSSIBLE.

“Il banchetto degli sfamati” – “The Sated Banquet” is inspired by the desire to understand what makes us “move”, what makes as sated and what makes us satisfied.

This piece of work wants to deal with the search for an identity in its subjective and collective dimension, in relationship with the change of needs that determine it.

It is like we lived in permanent condition of productive process encompassing not only our working life but the act of living.

In his “L’azienda totale”, Renato Curcio compares, as in a mirror, two situations, one real and one hypothetical: the story by Antonio Tamasich (1998) from the diary he wrote in the mental hospital in Trieste, where the presence of the director to the meals distribution made the medical attendants to “hide” all the less fortunate patients.

As Curcio writes: “Here, just like in the dining hall of our imaginary company, space depends on a symbolic code dividing users in two opposite categories: the “trained ones” and the “not presentable ones”. But if in the mental house the stake was food (“their trusted ones received four pieces of kolash, I got only two”), in the company cafeteria food is substituted by looks. You could say that you don’t go to this cafeteria to eat but to show off. In this particular piece of work what is showing off are latex masks, worn as a second skin, photographed, placed in circle facing each other, “free to look at each other and to eat whoever they find in front of them”.

“… Every mask is associated with myths that try to explain their legendary and otherworldly origin and to give basis to the function of masks in rituals, economy, society…” (Claude Levi-Strauss)

This function, seen from a contemporary perspective, seems to be meaningful only if considered as a renounce to one’s image, to one’s identity (represented through the two-dimensional filter of photography).

With “Il banchetto degli sfamati” I would like to underline both the relationship with food as a primary need (satisfied?) or as a symbol of other needs, and the relationship with the “client” who, walking on “lines of force” in a vectorial system, can become a point, line or segment… give himself or to others a direction or a halt… be sated.

Chiara Pellegrini

THANKS TO

POL!FEMO ASSOCIATION

IN PARTICULAR TO ITALO PERNA FOR COLLABORATING ON THE PROJECT

federico ambrosi, valentina de marchi, marina de meo for their help

AND EVERYONE WHO, WITH OR WITHOUT MASK

CONTRIBUTED TO THE MAKING OF THIS PIECE OF WORK

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ANDREA,

BECAUSE THOUGHTS, JUST LIKE DREAMS, TO BE REMEMBERED UNDERSTOOD, TRANSFORMED IN SOMETHING ELSE, NEED TO BE TOLD AND LISTENED TO