curated by Chiara Gatti

project coordination Elisabetta Masala

Nuoro, Museo MAN

july 14 – september 17, 2023

opening friday july 14, 19pm

The MAN Museum of Nuoro presents in its project room Je m'appelle Olympia, work winner of the ‘PAC2021 — Piano per l'Arte Contemporanea’ program promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Je m'appelle Olympia is an action for house lights performed by Alice Guareschi on just one occasion for a select audience of guests at the Olympia Music Hall, the legendary and iconic Parisian venue, on April 12th, 2012. The 16 photographs that make up this series were shot on the same day, right after the live activation of the light choreography in the theatre's empty space, which involved all thirteen of the coloured lighting channels that are permanently integrated into the architecture. With a fixed framing, similar but not identical, following the precise original lighting score composed by the artist, the images present a sequence of different movements of lights in the auditorium. The photographic series thus becomes a new synthesis of the image-idea and intention behind the performance: to activate a theatre when no show is happening on stage, to play it live, to reawaken its latent memory and the secret life that eludes the spectator’s gaze. By breaking down the duration of the action into photograms that can be viewed either separately or all together, the spatial arrangement of the work now makes it possible to embrace the overall idea at a glance.

The site-specific exhibit layout, designed by the artist for the museum's space, presents all the 16 photographs that make up the series, the invitation to the live performance and the original score, in which presence or pauses of the lights replaces the musical notes, in a complex polyphony. The space itself is conceived as a tiny theatre, that the audience enters by crossing a velvet curtain, which evokes the access to a parterre but it is also a border, a limit that parts the scene of life from its representation. As it is immersed in silence, removed from voices and sounds, the ideal space of the theatre then stages itself, while, inhabiting it, the light unveils its character and personality.

«The starting point is an image: a choreography of lights that suddenly come on in the empty space of the auditorium, at a time of day when no show is scheduled and the theatre is resting, uninhabited and silent. Like an explosion of energy that has accumulated over the years; like the unexpected revelation of a secret life which concerns nobody except the building. A few months ago, when I first found myself at the Olympia for a concert, I was mesmerised by the silent wonder of the lights, in relation to the theatre's somewhat romantic monumentality, which bears the signs of time and all its stories. To the point that, for me, the music became an almost superfluous element. Quite unexpectedly, I had become the spectator of a different show. At the end of the evening, I was the last person to leave the auditorium, wanting to make the most of the truly powerful atmosphere of the space once it had remained empty after the concert. Perceiving the tiny scale of my body in proportion to the spectacular majesty of the theatre, which is even more striking when nothing is happening on stage, also had an astonishing effect on me. In the narrative suspension of this present space-time, the link between past and future suddenly seemed to reveal itself, charged with an incredible sense of memory and potential. “This is the space where stories live”, I thought. Left with itself once again, the theatre seemed to be secretly vibrating». Alice Guareschi, Paris, april 12th, 2012

Biography

Alice Guareschi (1976) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Milano. She holds a MA in Philosophy from the University of Bologna with a thesis on experimental cinema. Over the years her work has included a wide range of media such as writing, sculpture and video. In 2005 she was resident artist at the Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon in Paris, in 2012 and 2015 at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Other residencies include Triangle, New York, and Kaus Australis, Rotterdam. In 2008 she was awarded with the Young Italian Art’s grant promoted by the Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum, and in 2022 she was among the recipients of the PAC2021 production grant, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. Since 2018 she is a lecturer in the visual arts department at IED Milano, and since 2022 at the Master of Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies of NABA, Milano. Solo shows include Galleria Alessandro De March, Milano; Centre Culturel Français, Milano; Galleria Sonia Rosso, Torino; Castello di Rivoli, Torino; Microscope Gallery, New York; Galerie DREI, Cologne; Joey Ramone Gallery, Rotterdam. Selected group shows: Fondazione Re Rebaudengo, Torino; Palais de Tokyo, Parigi; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Torino; PAC, Milano; MAMbo, Bologna; GAMeC, Bergamo; Mart, Rovereto; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma; Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Parigi; Accademia di Spagna and Accademia Tedesca at Villa Massimo, Roma; Villa Arson, Nizza. Selected film festivals and screenings: Filmmaker Festival, Milano; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Italian Cinema London Festival; Mostra del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro; Milano Design Film Festival; Triennale, Milano; Macro, Roma.

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