With Double Fantasy, artistic research comes back to live in Casa Vuota, exhibition space in Rome with a domestic past, that, under Sabino de Nichilo and Francesco Paolo Del Re’s artistic direction, gives shelter to art. The exhibition, curated by Gaia Bobò and open to the public – only by appointment – until March 7^th, showcases works by Ola Czuba and Milica Ćirović, who, by questioning the “gender” category, have outlined a two-voices extremely choral project. At first sight, we can catch the correspondence between the complexity of the topic, the diversity of the used expressive means and the articulation of an exhibition design, that winds well through the rooms of the “House”. Indeed, the exhibition design combines, coherently, the hidden plurality of these three components, reaching a point of balance between the different solutions adopted, the degree of variability of the chosen topic and the past – still deliberately perceptible – of the location; in particular, where screens and frames restore its history.
During the visit experience, these factors fade into one another, defining a single narration both visual and conceptual, where the artworks, focusing on the same topic, in the same context, synchronize their aesthetic breath.It is appropriate to note how, today, the concept of “gender” is getting more and more reinterpretations, representing a matter that, increasingly, is placed on the unsteady floor of the questions. In this case, the artists hypothesize a new “gender” iconography. Therefore, as Double Fantasy renews, current investigation in the field of visual arts – already supported by a strong background composed by Claude Cahun, Urs Luthi, Nan Goldin, etc. – is not insensitive to this issue. The artists offer a translation aimed at undermining “gender” traditional consideration, elaborating a fluid paraphrase, where the representation of “gender” is replaced by its expression and where truth is replaced by relativity. So, among installations, tableau vivant and performative videos, the dialogue between Czuba and Ćirović destroys any monolithic concept of “gender”, rewrites its metrics, forces its limits, subverts its grammar and, criticizing its symbolic rituals, it reveals the inconsistency of cultural classifications, as well as their relativity. On the other hand, a fluid consideration emerges and fed by coexistences, where the “gender”, estimating alternative identity addresses, appears as stateless, owner of a relevant permeability degree. This outcome seems spontaneously to mirror the language of the artists, who, although practicing a decidedly flexible vocabulary, render an organic and analytic overall vision. Ćirović – as the curator writes – “places her own body at the center of her investigation as a place for exploration of different genders, social contexts and roles of power. Czuba reveals the weight of the cultural stigmas coming from the past, uncovering their camouflages and inviting the attention to sharpen, to catch the dangers of this heritage”. In this way, starting from an investigation focused on conventionality of the most chronic social attributes, “gender” is decoded, first, through the physicality of the body and, finally, through the ephemeral dimension of the dream.

Info:

Ola Czuba and Milica Ćirović. Double Fantasy
curated by Gaia Bobò
19/01/2021 – 7/03/2021
Casa Vuota
via Maia 12, Roma