In September 1998, Britney Spears' video clip of the single …Baby One More Time detonated in the lives of millions of teenagers, heralding the ascent of a superstar soon to become an icon. Laura Baldassari has conducted an attentive analysis of the iconographic symbolism contained in this type of cult phenomenon, using it as a basis for her work as a multimedia artist. Born in Ravenna in 1987, Baldassari lives in Milan, where she is currently presenting a small but expressive show at Via Alessandro Tadino 20.

Large purple drapes pinned with a small neon sign reading “karaoke” in white capital letters form a backdrop to the exhibition. This gives a peculiar character to the gallery walls, hung with three big canvases depicting transfigured images of Britney Spears. They are surrounded by other symbolic elements suspended in an indeterminate space seemingly inspired by a digital screen. How do they relate to karaoke? Baldassari explains. “Karaoke is an actual place already deposited in our memory, full of the attitudes and dynamics we know so well. Above all, it is a place where you can express yourself and feel like a star for a few minutes.” This place for amateur performance dominated by a strong dose of determination and the urge to share has roused her curiosity: with a background in opera singing, she has developed an interest in the imagery of personal representation in the era of social media. “It’s an obsession we all have. In recent years, it has become omnipresent thanks to the smartphone, which translates many of our behaviours and habits into a kind of spectacle of ourselves that we want to give to others.”    

The installation in the middle of the room is complete with a microphone stand topped by a smartphone playing a video of one-minute clips. They are fragments of a Baldassari performance as she sings the cantabile Casta Diva from the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini. Her face is digitally altered by Instagram filters, making her appear remote and familiar at the same time. “The idea was to make a video-selfie with the typical characteristics of karaoke, with me singing what might be the most famous aria of all times, used in a zillion commercials for beauty products and perfumes,” says Baldassari. She is conscious of how the language of opera music and personalities such as Maria Callas represent the roots of pop music and are the fruit of intense physical self-discipline. “I have always been interested in extremism of the body. I wanted to refine by means of painting and singing the abilities I discovered as a child, trying to get closer to my ideal of perfection with my voice.” Song and its execution are a metaphor for painting in Baldassari's work. In Spear's image she finds a cult object of teen pop. “Although she is an icon of the 1990s, a trace of this is still alive now. For this show, I extracted symbols and elements from those days that coincide with my adolescence, the shaping of my identity,” she continues. She remembers how figures like the American pop singer had an aspirational value for her and a broad spectrum of teenagers around the world who drank in the images and lyrics. To portray the mixture of success, pain, elevation and fall, Baldassari depicts the aura of the singer with glossy precison-painting steeped in a surreal atmosphere with Vaporwave touches. “For these canvases, I did not use Spears' recognisable face, but her outfits. I took them from official pictures of the singer from the late 1990s for the launch of her first album. I reinterpreted them and painted them in oil on canvas.” It is striking to notice how the simple make of the clothing could belong to any teenager, and how the look has remained practically unaltered for the past 30 years. This solicits a number of thoughts on the timelessness of the legend impressed here in a large format using pastel colours. A tangle of roses and flames gives the faceless portraits a feeling of votive sacredness.

Laura Baldassari’s art takes on multiple levels of representation, unfolding in the sum of the media employed to further her discourse, but the paintings are where it finds a final synthesis. “Painting provides a counterpoint to our new reality, which is mostly told in very rapid virtual images. So I take painting as a sort of mandala that requires a long time, just like the continuous practice of singing is based on discipline.”