OPERE e GIORNI, Fresco Bosco
Certosa di San Lorenzo, Padula, 2007
SIAMOSIETE was commissioned by OPERE e GIORNI - Fresco Bosco/Ortus Artis, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, as a permanent, site-specific installation for the gardens of the Certosa di San Lorenzo, Padula, where carthusian monks used to stroll in silence. The carthusian order was formed in 1084, by a group of monks who wanted to emulate the harsh, contemplative lives of the early Christian hermits, beginning with a small community in the Chartreuse Mountains, near Grenoble in France.
The installation consisted of 7 translucent containers (white garbage cans in this case), modified to contain different “amounts” of light, mirrors and the words: SIAMO, SIETE, TUTTI, LADRI, BUGIARDI, VITTIME (Your are, We are, All, Thieves, Liars, Victims) . One of the container had no words. It contained only a flat mirror reflecting the viewer into its contents. The containers’ lights were syncopated by a composed score of ON and OFF, like the lighting bugs that fill the summer nights of the gardens. The words in the garbage cans referred to the pervasive corruption in society that triggered the “garbage crisis” in the city of Naples at the time of the installation. Ironically, the installation became a self-fulfilling prophecy, having been destroyed by vandals in the years after its creation.
The exhibition was accompanied by a color publication.
some photographs © Arsenio Pandolfo – 2008