Fragile Citizens
Fragile Citizens is a series of photographs to a reproductions of classical sculptures illuminated by an ultraviolet light usually utilized in archaeology and restoration to make visible the imperfections or the presence of non-original materials. The plaster copies in the gypsoteca, in their evident fragility, seem apparently ‘perfect’ under ultraviolet light, according to its conventional use. The term ‘perfection’ has as synonyms, among many completeness and exemplarity, inimitable. The contrast between the nature of these figures, which lies in their reproduction in duplicates, and the concept of perfection remains suspended around what is meant by value: value is perfection? or can we understand fragility, a constituted element of the present, as a virtue, a value, which resolves itself in change?
The change occurs when, for some reason, we find ourselves in a riskier condition, in which we are weaker, more fragile. If we operate exclusively according to the logic realization, of completeness, of excellence and usefulness, of ‘perfection’, we will lose access to all those ways of making sense that hold against unpredictability, instability and vulnerability, according to which we react and create relationships: “(…) the unpredictable nature of time is frightening, but thinking through precariousness also highlights that indeterminacy makes life possible” (from The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing).
Thanks to Gipsoteca Mondazzi.
Direct Uv led prints on 5mm float glass, color.
84×56 cm., 72×48 cm., 63×42 cm.
2022
