Dafne Boggeri

The title of Dafne Boggeri’s current show, “Vorrei che il cielo fosse bianco di carta” (I Wish That the Sky Were White with Paper) expresses a longing fulfilled by the exhibition’s central work. For the evening of her opening, Boggeri turned three compact cars into barricades by placing them lengthwise along the thresholds of the gallery’s doors. To enter, visitors were compelled to crawl into one of the automobiles, slide across its backseat, and exit on the other side, emerging to discover the gallery adorned with a paper sky. This false ceiling comprises panels of white cardboard, referencing the famous partisan resistance song that inspires the show’s title: “Se il cielo fosse bianco di carta” (If the Sky Were White with Paper). A star of sorts completes Boggeri’s simulated sky; in Spettrali, doppie variabili (Spectral, Double Variables; all works 2008), three simple drafting triangles of transparent blue plastic hang on the wall, in an obvious yet surprising gesture. Though arresting, the work takes a while to be found, serving—somewhat like the North Star—as a bold but easily overlooked point of reference.

Boggeri once again reveals her ability to describe images and imagine stories through a variety of objects and languages, such as in the wall installation made up of fifty-four playing cards, some old, others new, their faces to the wall as if awaiting the beginning of a game. The back of each card sports a unique, colorful pattern. This deck perhaps symbolizes life’s obligatory gambles and unavoidable risks. Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before is a disorderly heap of VHS tapes, Betacam cameras, DVDs, CDs, diskettes, pen drives, audio cassettes, MiniDiscs, and various other audio and video devices, all held together by an elastic band. Each of these objects contains a fragment of monologue delivered by musician Bettina Koester, an acquaintance of Boggeri who was a leading figure in the 1980s No Wave scenes in Berlin and New York. In the short audio segment available to visitors, Koester seems to be answering a question about love and rejection. Rather than broadcasting a full response, though, the sculpture remains largely silent and mysterious. It allows visitors to imagine most of Koester’s soliloquy, providing them the freedom to think about their own failed love affairs, beneath a sky made white with paper.