Reverse direction. Between space and action
Manuela Macco, may 2017
07-21.05.2017 / Manuela Macco-Guido Salvini. Reverse direction. Between space and action, Xu Space, Chongqing (CN)
The gallery is an intimate physical space of a metaphorical journey through self-knowledge. Observation as a central idea. Reverse direction as a strategy to trigger new and unusual relational dynamics. In a continuous dialogue between inside and outside, between space and action, the project develops simultaneously in the closed empty gallery room and in the open, crowded space of the sports field.
Xu space hosts the introspective phase of the process, the time devoted to the identification and elaboration of formal and conceptual needs linked to each artist’s personal research. Here reflection on objective reality inrefaces with thought and never performed actions.
Salvini reflects on reality by isolating the detail, essential and universal objective element, the same here and elsewhere and, at the same time, unique. The operation, which involves a photographic stratified investigation in progress, vivisects the visible to research new plans of reality.
I investigate the act of exposing myself and the act of doing calling in to question live performance. Two different types of the site specific actions intersect each other: the action of imagining, which actually takes place, and the actions just imagined. In both cases space is real and objects are real. This experimental project is a silent act, without movement, not exhibited, where imagination represents a resource to be exercised, a strategy to escape from canonical communication systems.
The sports field represents the window on the outside and it is the place of a relational experiment. The intervention in the local context is minimal, non-invasive, and it proposes an experience based on the reverse of the usual trajectory.
What happens when we volountarily decide to change direction by breaking commonly accepted customs? New dimensions, risks but also possibilities, are opened, point of view changes, routine stops, time expands, unexpected minimal events happen, perspective changes.
In the gallery space movement is subtle, vertical, as the one of a probe. The reverse is expressed both in the process and in the setting up, subverting vision rules. The body is rarefied, it dissolves in the visual details scattered across the room, in the textual evocation of imagined and never performed actions. Traces of underground paths in a suspended time, the time of inner reality, the rhythm of the essence.
In the open space of the sports field the body is “presence”. The group of people on the way is a physical, social, cultural, collective and individual body at the same time. The movement is circular, typical of meditative walk and also of monotonous daily routine. Each one is lost in his going, addicted to his own personal rhythm. The reverse is an imperceptible and destabilizing detail that opens up new possibilities of relationship. The gaze is reactivated, the body is alerted, there is occasion for encounter, and also for conflict, with oneself and with others. A subtle and momentary rift in ordinary reality, a slight approach between inside and outside.