Site-specific audiovisual performance by Masbedo

On Thursday 15 December at 9.00 p.m. the Anish Kapoor exhibition will host Poor Big Baby #3, a site-specific audiovisual performance by Masbedo, in collaboration with Lagash, a composer and producer of electronic music.

In Poor Big Baby #3 Masbedo will project onto two large screens, in a kind of agonistic trance, a series of images generated there and then with a live musical accompaniment by Lagash:  like all the performances by Masbedo this one will be completely improvised – and thus unique – and will allow the public to witness the birth of a work of art. This is a question of an inquiry into performances as a form of art and communication: the objects and photos accumulated on the tables represent a static universe that comes to life as a result of the artists’ gestures, filmed actions, and music.

The form of the performance will be halfway between a visual metaphor and free associations of thought. Such an “a-structuring” paradoxically implies that the artists choose to trust in the dictates of uncertainty, the philosophical subject of the performance and one of the most important themes of contemporaneity. So risk and error will be staged, two basic elements usually considered disturbing and unsightly.

Poor Big Baby #3 will be screened in the Cattedrale area of the Fabbrica del Vapore which until 8 January 2012 is hosting the monumental site-specific work by Anish Kapoor Dirty Corner, produced by the Milan city council and the MADEINART art production society.

For this occasion the Anish Kapoor show’s opening hours will be extended until 01:00 am (last entry half an hour before) and it will be possible to walk through the Dirty Corner installation and enjoy the performance by Masbedo at the cost of €6 per person.

A party will follow.

MASBEDO

Masbedo is the nom de plume of Nicolò Massazza (Milan, 1973) and Iacopo Bedogni Sarzana, 1970) who live and work in Milan and Berlin. These two video-artists have been active in the field of performance since 2009, the year of their Glima, una performance, which involved the participation of the Icelandic dancer and choreographer Erna Omarsdottir. Again in 2009 they were selected to take part in the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2010 they won the Cairo prize and, during the United Nations’ world forum, screened their short film Distante un padre in the Rio de Janeiro museum of contemporary art. In 2011 the Marco Noire gallery, Turin, chose them for the Art Unlimited section of the Basel art fair where they showed their video-installation Kreppa Babies; in the same year MAXXI, Rome, presented their performance C’est la vie pas le paradis. Then, in the Teatro Palladium in Rome, they presented their performance La Musa, which was a success both with the public and the critics. They have taken part in various film festivals: Locarno, Rome, Istanbul, Lisbon, Athens, and Miami. Since 2002 they have collaborated with the French author Michel Houellebecq with whom they have written and produced the works 11.22.03 and Il mondo non è un panorama with the Oscar prize winner Juliette Binoche. In 2007, at the Trieste Film Festival, they were awarded the critic’s prize for their work 10 Insects to Feed and, in 2006, they were the only video-artists chosen in Locarno for the festival’s prestigious Piazza Grande prize. Their works have been seen in: GAM Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Turin; MACRO Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Rome; DA2 Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Salamanca; CAAM Centro Atlantico di Arte Moderna, Las Palmas; Junta de Andalucia; CAIRN Centro di Arte Contemporanea, Digne; and the Tel Aviv Art Museum.

LAGASH

Lagash is the nom de plume of Luca Saporiti, a producer, musician, and performer. He has frequently collaborated with Masbedo for whom he created the soundtracks and sound-designs for such projects as Glima, una performance in 2010 with Gianni Maroccolo. In London during the 1990s he cut his first disc, Lagash, for the British company Beyond Records. After a long period with the La Crus group, for which he was producer and bass player, in 2008 he joined Marlene Kuntz.