Project Room' Programme 2009_2010

26.03.09 | 01.12.10

EMPATHY 2009 Punch n° 35 2007 Untitled 2009 Untitled 2009 Non si Tocca 2009 The Istanbul Symphony 2009 Celebration 2008 Cacophonic battle # 6 2009 Untitled (Ephesus Artemis) 2009 Untitled 2009 2010

Roberto Amoroso

A Piece of my Art

2009

 

 

 

 

The installation works on two levels: the first is mathematical and the second is metaphorical. The Project Room is fully wrapped with wallpaper that draws the visitor into a metaphorical dimension. A series of human-animal hybrids emerges form the walls. All the compositional architecture takes on a visionary aspect: the disquieting beings that inhabit it seem to be blocked in the instant before they collapse to the ground.
Amoroso’s work is characterized by the reinterpretation of miscellaneous cultural stimuli. The iconographic references come both from history of art (the representation of gigantomachy and the posture of the classic statuary) and the glossy fashion magazines. Besides they melt with theoretical cues such as theriomorphism (hybridisation human being/ animal) and cyborg (hybridisation human being/machine) that are key features of the Post-Human sensitivity. The matter side of the installation is contradicted by the artist’s performance staged for the whole length of the exhibition. Armed with a personal computer, he gives a small portion of this work to all the visitors who are provided with an usb key. In this way they can seize the artwork as a fetish and reproduce it as they like.

The perfomative action clears up the play upon words that underpin the exhibition’s title. It is borrowed from the popular song by Janis Joplin Piece of my Heart and it ironically suggests the equivalence between a piece of my heart and a piece of my art. Thanks to technology this gesture turns from being symbolic into being literal.
The sound aspect of the installation enriches the artwork with a further meaning. The original song is subjected to a process of defragmentation similarly to what happens to the artwork during the performative action. The defrag sound is reduced to a sequence of noise sonority.

A piece of my Art is a synaesthetic installation, emblematic of the changeover from the work of art in the epoch of its technical reproducibility to the work of art in the epoch of its digital reproducibility. In this context the artist expresses himself in an un-subjective way while the work of art tends to show itself as an impersonal product and an undone communication device. This practice makes the notion of copyright always more evanescent.