03 04 19 – 16 09 19

 

 

The term “flashing” describes the action of showing one’s genitals to non-consenting people in inappropriate contexts. In said contexts, the overpowering nature of the act of flashing renders it a typical manifestation of the patriarchal society. The practice of flashing is a kind of exhibitionism, which the 2013 DSM-5 catalogued as a mental disorder owing to its being abusive in nature and offensive to public decency. At the same time, albeit in other contexts, the act of flashing contains the seed of a revolutionary kind of performativity (Koskela, 2018) aimed at re-appropriating spaces precluded by social norms and moral systems. In this sense – which is devoid of machismos – exhibitionism becomes an instrument for self-determination through which to reclaim one’s freedom of movement and rewrite one’s narrative. 

The Flashing and flashing! exhibition project interprets said redefinition of the term “flashing” as a curatorial device aimed at reclaiming spaces of intervention and eluding the economic and practical limitations of the given context. Seven artworks, one for each of the artists shown at the space – Daria Blum, Deniz Eroglu, Marco Giordano, IOCOSE, Tamara MacArthur, Vasilis Papageorgiou and Michele Rizzo – are forced against a green screen. The artworks quietly stretch out while posing for a group photo portraying the history of the project space. 

Exploring the distinctive features of virtuality – being real even if not actual, being ideal without being abstract – Flashing and flashing! breaks down the wall of the Carlo Scarpa foyer, through a post-production intervention performed on the installations shots of the exhibition. The limited exhibition space is thereby expanded into an enlarged version of the display that takes place in a room behind the wall. Here, several artworks by the same artists create an itinerary that cannot be seen in the museum, but only through the screen of one’s smartphone or computer. 

Flashing and flashing! takes over images and spaces, defining a new framework for an exhibitionistic act which creates a space for rewriting one’s narrative between the live experience of an exhibition and its digital fruition.

 

 

Technical Partner : EDI Effetti digitali Italiani