Gold revolution: site specific performance and installation | 2 Harri’s Haws, 13 books on the revolution | Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library, American Academy in Rome| 2015
Solfato di rame – CuSO4: installation | soft wax on iron plate | 60x80cm | 2015
The first part of the project is composed by Gold Revolution performance (2015), part of a revision of the video Oro (2011) and the subsequent performance Gold (2011).
In Oro, what resurfaced was the complex scope of the thought system of esotericism and alchemy, which combines scientific research and yearning for salvation. The idea of a possible spiritual development of man was associated with an element of absolute symbolic value, gold.
Like alchemists believed in the recurrence of four historical eras, the Age of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron, in this project is expressed the conviction of an organic and cyclical nature of an imminent transition from the contemporary Iron Age to a new Golden Age.
In this project, three hawks fly freely around the library, turning it into a disturbing and uncertain environment, imbued with a tangible sense of decadence and catastrophe. On the reading tables, there are a few history books on the subject of revolution and liberation chosen by Stefania Tutino (AAR 2014, Professor and As- sociate Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, UCLA) and some poems by Roman authors chosen by Laura Cingolani (a Roman poet).
The second part of this project is called Solfato di Rame (Copper Sulphate), which is related to the Gold Revolution performance. It consists of four iron slabs which simulate the walls of a cage and evoke, through the soft-wax technique, the constrained movement of an animal while trying to escape.
The work, associated with the free flight of the three hawks around the library, reflects on the double meaning of liberation and constraint. The act of freeing animals within the premises of an institution alludes to the need to integrate the new in breaking the rules, leaving room for the free and irrepressible thought that culture carries: through the uncontrolled flitting and presence of the animal, we are compelled to abandon the old for the new.
