Beige

Beige (2001-2010), by Giulia Piscitelli, is the film of a film: the artist finds a black-and-white film, watches it through an old hand-operated moviola and films it again. As it is often the case with Giulia Piscitelli’s works, Beige – installed in the basement of the Foundation – also bears a double date since it consists of the reworking of an old found film. The film features two women of different ages, but neither their identities nor the relationship existing between them will be revealed. The images unfold, more or less clear and blurred, at an irregular, almost weary pace, accompanied by the background noise of the crank.

The basement of Foundation also features the installation Idem (2010): a cluster hanging from the ceiling, made up of big leaves trimmed from a twenty-year-old agave located in the Naples Zoo, a place that Giulia Piscitelli visits regularly and where she spends a lot of time. The leaves are covered with inscriptions carved by the visitors of the Zoo. Most of them are messages of a love that aims to be eternal but whose promise will have to deal with the transient life of the plant.

I Have Some Time to Spend with You (2010), on view upstairs, is the screening of 80 slides, dating from 1955, which were found several years ago nearby the United States Embassy in Naples. The slides depict travel photographs taken in Detroit and its surroundings, an itinerary that traces an ideal of democracy, productivity and wellbeing: Ford and the thriving car industry, an electoral campaign, the crossing of landscapes. They are mostly images depicting situations of wellbeing, except for a few of them which are a bit less reassuring, such as the image of an empty swimming pool.

The works on display, with different characters and different forms, make up a selection of images connected with the changeability of reality, with the evanescence and the passing of time. Each of them asserts the transience of love, of relationships and of wellbeing, as well as challenging absolute truths. Beige, which is rather a nuance than a colour, is the thread that binds them together.

Our acknowledgements go to the Naples Zoo for their kind collaboration.

All images Courtesy Fondazione Morra Greco, Napoli
© Danilo Donzelli