ROOM 1 – IN THE DINING ROOM
The exhibition opens with Christian Fogarolli’s sculpture Loose (2017), which invites the visitor to interact with the work in order to be able to slowly begin to grasp the image-identity that emerges from a play of refractions on a mirrored surface. The archive photographic image appropriated by the artist re-emerges in fragments under the shapeless lead surface and to see it requires patience and expertise, a process that symbolically stages a going beyond first retinal observations of appearances in order to open oneself up to the discovery of the other and its peculiarities – an action that essentially sums up the meaning of the whole of the Persona exhibition.
In Filippo Berta’s Déjà vu (2008) a seemingly playful game of tug of war between six pairs of twins elicits a reflection on the competitiveness that underlies our existence: a metaphorical return to Bellum omnium contraomnes where you fight people with the same genetic makeup. In the work of Filippo Berta, it is the mise-en-scène of small everyday gestures that bring out the conflict and tension inherent in the relationship between man and society. The series of videos and photographs on display are the result of collective performances in which seemingly banal actions assume an allegorical value in order to unmask the conformism prevalent in our lives.
