In your two previous exhibitions – ‘Set’ and ‘Tagadà’ – you were involved with patients at the psychiatric hospital San Colombano al Lambro and a truly absorbing happening whose name reminded of that of a carousel. What are we to expect from this one-man show at Gamec in Bergamo?
These three exhibitions make up a kind of trilogy. They are a self-portrait with a number of recurring elements. Whereas though the first two exhibitions were more playful and closer to the theme of the amusement park, here I think there is a more disturbing feel beneath it all. I think, for example, of the guardrail – that is real – that cuts the gallery in two and every so often gives off sounds, like when an old fridge at home comes alive and trembles all of a sudden, or the effect of the white strobe lights. The exhibition will have a rather nervous and unsettled feel. It is as if it represents an unstable reality, a nomadic quotidian. The basic theme – the thread that holds together all the works – is collage, that for me is a way of thinking and seeing reality. At Gamec there will be a wall with a hundred collages screwed to the wall and to wood. There will be paper collages, made from cutting out pictures from old magazines, mostly National Geographics from the 1980s to today. This is why I describe it as a self-portrait exhibition, because I have thought a lot in images and I live in images rather than words. I also use collage to lose control: I start and I don’t know where I will end up.
Can you explain how the title came about, why raptus?
I could say that my raptus is cutting, something that is also the sense of my work, my way of thinking, my head. I have been cutting now for about ten years.
It is a very considered raptus, given that it has been going for so many years
For me raptus is more than anything tics and manias. Collage also identifies dream, it is a way of passing from one thing to another.
It is an exhibition that has a very architectural relationship with space…
It’s a nice space, but also complicated because it is very high and long. I tried to bring out its qualities, working a lot with the height. There is a chandelier that comes down from above and that I define as a somewhat sick object. It is made entirely from shark’s teeth (fake of course), it’s a kind of prehistoric animal. Then there is a 12-metre-long track made of lighters lined up on the floor. A large photo (five metres six) taken in an building site in Milan, in the piazzale Lugano district, is hung on the back wall. Then there is me, three metres high, I am lifting a ceramic tiger. It is an ironic image of course.
Will there be a performance?
In this exhibition there will be just one, on the opening night (2 April), during which a group of performers will hold up an optical black and white sheet to create rooms in space. I won’t be giving them set orders, I propose a constant and they interact with the public.
