Lucio Fontana (the master) and Freddy Krueger (the monster) were juxtaposed in an installation that featured video clips from the ‘Nightmare’ horror film series, b/w portraits, an underlined copy of Lucio Fontana’s private correspondence which i found in his Milanese archive, a ‘nightmare’ bedside table piece, and 16 waitress aprons tied together and printed with Fontana’s trademark cuts. The choice of aprons referred to my previous performance as a waitress and also to a male sexual fantasy.
The work of Fontana, the revered grand master of Italian Modernism, had never before been subjected to a feminist analysis. As I started moving my first steps in the Italian art system, I realised that with the exception of my new gallerist, Emi Fontana and Artforum critic, Francesca Pasini, very few people dared to question and challenge the macho attitudes that were still dominant in the art circles in which, for better or worse, I had to move.
I had recently returned to Italy after spending a few months in New York, and I found the conservatorism of Italian critical discourse very frustrating and stifling. This show reflected my desire to break free from the patronising and condescending protection usually offered by male critics and curators to young women artists in Italy. It certainly ruffled a few feathers and didn’t help my reputation: outspoken critics of the status quo usually find themselves marginalised.
By juxtaposing the high priest of Italian Modernism, a high-brow icon, and Freddy Krueger, a fictional villain and a mass culture icon, not only did I call into question the distinction between high and low culture, but also pointed out the symbolic implications of Fontana’s famous cuts. Fontana brandishing a knife and slashing his canvases took a completely new, and disturbing meaning when read against his corresponce with Tullio d’Albissola, letters in which he referred to his famous cuts as ‘cunts’ and the sharp glove with which Freddy Krueger slashes his victims
No comments:
Post a Comment