Have You Seen Me ?
54th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2011 / Italian Pavillion in the World, Arsenale, Venezia and Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles
HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
by Patrizia Mania
critic / curator / art historian
“Have you seen me?”: in this question the leitmotif of Luigia Martelloni’s installation project scattered throughout the venues of the Venice Biennale, from Venice to Los Angeles. The peculiarity of this edition of the Venice Biennale, and, as far as the Italian Pavilion is concerned, is in fact that of being located not only in the traditional sites of the lagoon but also in the many Italian cultural institutes abroad. At the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles she was invited to exhibit Martelloni who wanted to support the idea of moving with an articulated work as a path that winds from Los Angeles to Venice. Right here, and in the itinerary crossed, the artist has put in place what we could define a recall sign made of dozens of CD media on which he obsessively questions those who intercept them about the desired attention to the work: a difficult request, compromised in the outcome by the excess of solicitations that risk denying it, making it impossible, neutralizing it. And, then, “on the road” traveled by the artist, these mirror surfaces remind those who come across them to give you consideration, to evaluate the possibility of taking care of her work, to distract themselves from the undifferentiated and frenetic consumption, even of art. Specifically, an extended invitation not to neglect the signals, creating a snare, a refrain with the Los Angeles exhibition. The possibility is taken into account that the random installation of this myriad of mirrors may not be intercepted, may get lost in the dissipation of the making of the same experience. In this aporia she evidently lives her very reason for being.
Materializing the present of digital communication, the CDs scattered along the way, with the memory of the crossings traveled, the details of nature, with the memory of the journeys narrated, the books open on the lecterns, is configured as advancing in the desire to welcome the other and include it in the proposed mirror reflection process. Out of us, out of the texts, iconic and verbal, there remain traces of correspondence in the world where everyone is called to take part in a participatory sharing of the itinerary of existence.