I REALLY WHITE CUBE, DO U? refeflects on the interconnection of art, money and power dynamics. Those interconnections make it a space par excellence of modern western societies, and an ideal laboratory where to experiment how younger generations repeatedly try to overcome but at some point – no matter why – enter the interconnection themselves. 

It took place in Triennale Milano’s Salone d’onore, a space which has been constructed, inaugurated and commissioned with the monumental, allegoric mosaic »Le arti« by Gino Severini – futurist painter and signer of the Futurist Manifesto of the painters – for the Triennale 1933. The space’s history and the presence of »the arts« in Severini’s allegorical interpretation brought me to reflect on the interconnectivity of todays capitalism with fascist ideology, that those are again connected to the imbalance of power between the generations and how all of them are implemented, performed and manifested in our way of constructing and perceiving narratives.

An important part was to manifest that I – the performer – am not outside of this discourse but a part of it who herself constructs and perceives narratives all the time, too and so contributes to this circulatory way of forming culture. Making myself the canvas, on which is written the title of the performance hence was important but also to stop distinguishing between me and the white cube, but on the contrary embodying and appropriating oneself the act of authorship.

I worked with a simple imagery which -thanks to its recognisability- makes it possible to reveal connections and provoke associations inside the spectators head:

maestro:

an italian word, typically associated with a male figure, who has ‚mastered‘ his art. The female is impossible as it is associated to kindergarten teachers. It is associated as well as to some kind of genius figure which implicates that any action done by him is not explainable or even doesn’t need explanation, the maestro is only accountable to himself. The term became also the name of an international credit card system, which’s logo of a red and blue circle which overlap each other, is immediately recognisable all over the world as everyone can find it on their banking cards in their wallets. 

Burger King Cheeseburger:

it is a symbol of globalised capitalism and monoculture. It is also a symbol for lower income class’s bad nutrition and often looked down on as ‚junk‘ food. When I noticed that before going to Triennale Milano, eating at the local Burger King I hid behind walls because I was afraid, being seen by ‚cultural‘ people of the Triennale would let me look bad in their eyes, decided to bring and eat the cheeseburger right in front of them in the museum. While eating, I formed a crown with origami technique and put it on my head. Crowing myself as an act of reference to manifestos of young generations who entitle themselves to change the world they live in.

wikipedia:

over the years of its existence the community circling around the open source encyclopaedic platform has developed a system of rules on how to produce articles and especially a set of rules which shell protect the platform from ‚fake news‘. This led to a rigid but open for discussions virtual space of producing narratives where any other form of scripture is perceived as ‚vandalism‘. Changing significants between the german and italian wikipedia page of Gino Severini and his complex figure – connected to futurism, fascist art and ‚degenerated‘ art in Germany – led to the blockage of the page. 

accademiadellacrusca.org:

using the internet platform of Accademia della Crusca permitted on the one hand to have the authentic futurist manifesto, signed by Severini I was looking for but also opened another layer to the context of scripture, as the Academy is the oldest institution for linguistics in the world and works knowingly on the purity of the Italian language.

The goal

of I REALLY WHITE CUBE, DO U? is to enable the imagination of the spectator with a real life montage. But instead of an impersonal video the relation between the performer, who is ‚showing‘ something by consciously choosing to do each action, precisely ‚scripting‘ every little act, from eating the cheeseburger to mark specific words in the text of each page and google search she does is creating a landscape of further understanding. Because the starting point is the very space performer and spectator find themselves in, the performativity of the action consists in the real change of how the spectator lives the space itself and to change his/her relationship with it. This was underlined by back drops in direct visual contact but also through the immediacy of comic moments especially underlined by the choice of costume. 

_{Nascondere è un progetto ideato da Romeo Castellucci e prodotto da Triennale Milano in collaborazione con la Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura.}