BRZ5

Jumairy has transformed an apartment in Milan into his personal Barzakh, a labyrinthine chamber to celebrate a vigil: the passage between childhood and adulthood.

BRZ5 is not a secret code but an abbreviation of the word Barzakh, which in Arabic designates the limbo where the souls wait for Judgment Day: the threshold between the universe of the living and  of the dead. Artist Jumairy has transformed the rooms of an apartment into his personal Barzakh, a labyrinthine antechamber to celebrate a vigil: the passage between childhood and adulthood, memory and amnesia, insomnia and lucid dreaming.

Jumairy, Pour the coffee ( صب†القهوة†), performance, coffee pots, cups, 2016 (detail)

A domestic space is covered by a dense darkness, fragmented only by some rays of light from a few torches. Looking carefully in their direction it is possible to distinguish some black and white images, not entirely decodable: these are the last remains extracted from the smartphone the artist took with him during his first residency in Milan and broke forever on that occasion. 

Invernomuto, Movimenti Versus l’Altro, collage, 82x82cm, courtesy the artists and Pinksummer, private collection, 2014

In this way, the trails of a parallel life become public and get restored, slowly exhausting together with the batteries of torches. The psychological processes related to the elaboration of grief are transferred from the human mind to the mechanisms of an external memory.

Jumairy, Mirror Mirror, dissected hand-written poem, marker, mirror, variable dimensions, 2016

As if it was a movie, BRZ5 includes some cameos: the extraordinary participations of Carlo Antonelli, Tomaso De Luca, Anna Franceschini, Sofia Ginevra Giannì, Invernomuto, Jacopo Miliani, artists and personalities who marked the time that Jumairy spent during his residency at FARE.

Jacopo Miliani, <i>You boss has given you this factory what do you think?</i>, performed artist book, courtesy the artist and selfplesurepublishing
Jumairy, <i>S/\M in BRZ5</i>, video, 29’25’’, 2016, installation view
Tomaso De Luca, <i>Virile</i>, paper, rubber, fake pearls, stickers, gouache, variable dimensions, courtesy of the artist and Monitor Gallery, 2016 (detail)
Jumairy, <i>Body</i>, smartphone, wax, wood, fabric, 90x180cm, 2016, installation view


until 31 January 2017
BRZ5
curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
FARE c/o Frigoriferi Milanesi
via Piranesi 14, Milan