Easy as…or simple as… is the re-enactment of the ABECEDA (1926) by Karel Teige. A Czech avant-garde artist and designer, Teige illustrated the Western alphabet by a series of photographs depicting the gestures of the dancer Milca Mayerová. The act of the dancer, mimicking the forms of the letters, brings a doubled dimension – an ultra-thin space between reality and its reflection - where imagination can take place and open to “something different and not immediately recognizable” (Miliani).
By re-enacting Teige’s work, Jacopo Miliani plays a mise-en-abîme of the referent piece, adding to it the conscience of its representation when imposing the dancer to wear a parrot masque.
Developing further the game of mirrors around the piece, Miliani has asked curator Caterina Riva to respond by a text to the series of photographs composing the work Easy as…or simple as… For past forward, the alphabet photographed re-enter the textual dimension, bringing a new system of relationships and correlations between text and image.
Many thanks to Caterina Riva for her kind complicity to this project.
Let’s imagine ... Easy as…or simple as… ... edited in a quick animation ... the 26 dancer’s gestures mimicking the letters reconstitute a fluid series of movements.
Movements are of a dancer but the curtain on the background is taken from the stage of a theatre: here we have the most important elements in the work of Jacopo Miliani.
Often captured into photographs, movement in Miliani’s installations entertains a game of correspondences in between its different formal and aesthetical representations. Here is another decisive word: representation.
Representation re-transmits the ephemeral nature of a moment. Representation is the mirage of the reality; when re-presented, reality becomes truer.
To play the game of the true nature of the re-presented reality, the artist employs found images, texts and objects in his installations, to build an imaginary space for visitors, calling to personal memories or interpretations.
Jacopo Miliani works mostly with installation, photography and performative art.
In 2009 he was selected for the residence program at Platform Garanti, Istanbul.
He has presented his projects in various exhibition spaces, including: Studio Dabbeni (Lugano), Frutta (Rome), MARCO (Vigo), Montehermoso (Victoria), GAM (Turin) Museo MADRE (Naples), MACRO (Rome), Form Content (London), Galeria Vermelho (San Paolo), Komplot (Bruxelles), Victoria and Albert Museum (London).
He is founder and member of the international collective OuUnPo.
Websites:
www.jacopomiliani.info http://silverstammer.blogspot.com/
Monography: Jacopo Miliani. Do you Believe in Mirages?. EX3, Florence, 2012. A&M bookstore Edizioni, Milan, 2012.
