Marta Dell’Angelo’s exhibition at this Milanese gallery, after a four-year hiatus, highlights previous themes in her work––namely, the body and performance––but it also focuses on her recent attention to routines and the specific gestures that they entail. Her participation in international exhibitions, including the 2009 Tirana Biennial, and the book she wrote this year with Ludovica Lumer, C’é da perderci la testa (It can drive you crazy), should be considered progressive stages in the formalization of the works in her current show. For example, in Antologia delle Posizioni (Anthology of Positions), 2009, a printed roll of paper placed on top of a plywood sheet offers thousands of images of women in different positions. During the opening, two women dressed in nurselike white outfits carefully unwound the delicate paper on which the images are printed, making each visible, one by one. Also during the opening, a young Portuguese performer named Marcia Lancia mimicked the poses of the women portrayed on the roll of paper.
Rounding out the show are other works about routines such as the video Preliminari (Preliminaries), 2008, which depicts a gymnast sprinkling chalk dust on the bar she is preparing for an exercise. The meticulousness and almost compulsive attitude of her gestures lead the viewer to think it is a simulation of an erotic act. Finally, there is a painting that portrays the busts of girls dressed in red leotards and a chair that bears the following phrase: QUANDO SI È SEDUTO LE SUE COSCE SI SONO ALLARGATE DEL DOPPIO (When one is seated one’s thighs are doubled in size). A strange phrase, to be sure: This is yet another way Dell’Angelo inspires a discourse on the anthropology of gestures.
Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.
