I'll Never Give Up Smoking: press release

Closing party
Saturday 22nd January 2011, 21.30h - 24h

Officina Giovani
Piazza Macelli, 4
Prato

For the party, we'll have:

-Dancing in the Dark, performance by Valentina Lapolla in collaboration with aliREmote Dance Lab & Augusto Buzzegoli. Starting at 21.30h and at 23h at Arti Figurative Lab Room

- Tempesta di Neve, by Fermin Jimenez Landa. Intervention at the Buffet

Curated by Alba Braza Boïls

Until 14 January 2011

Officina Giovani - Cantieri Culturali Ex macelli - Prato

Monday – Saturday, 3-7 pm

Valentina Lapolla

Vanni Bassetti

Yonel Hidalgo

Kaoru Katayama

Fermín Jiménez Landa

Beatrice Mochi Zamperoli

Vanni Bassetti, Greta o la maturità, 2010, Photo

...I begged you to dress me differently. But you refused. “Visiting the Statue of Liberty isn’t the same as playing in the back yard”, you said, “it’s the symbol of our country, and we have to show it due respect”... We were about to pay homage to the concept of freedom, and I was in chains... I offered to do a deal with you. Alright, I said, I’ll wear these clothes today, but if the other boys wear cotton trousers and sneakers... from now on you’ll let me wear what I like...

That was the first important victory in my life. I felt as if I had dealt a blow for democracy, as if I had stood up in the name of all the oppressed people in the world.

... - Now I know why you’re so keen on jeans, said Fanny. You discovered the principle of self-determination, and in that moment you decided to go badly dressed the rest of your life.

- Exactly - said Sachs-. I earned the right to be dirty, and, from then on, I have proudly carried the flag...

Paul Auster, Leviathan

I’ll Never Give Up Smoking presents a series of works which dwell on and enjoy the feeling of freedom at its purest and most optimistic, as if it was a case of a response to THE FEAR FACTOR exhibition.

Despite the differences in age and experience among each of the participating artists, they are all heirs to a period - that of the Sixties and the Beat Generation - we still look upon with the healthy dose of envy of someone who would have liked to be present everywhere at the same time, and to only experience the best moments, without missing an opportunity.

I’ll Never Give Up Smoking stands its ground in the face of any fear, as if it were a trip in which all stimuli become an opportunity, a new door which opens before us. A trip through physical space and also through time, enthusiastically stopping at a present moment which offers ongoing interpretations.

From her birthplace, Prato, Valentina Lapolla, with Camouflage, studies her space in order to tell us specifically one of the situations which are happening in the city through her, as a catalyst of feelings.

Also in a combative way, Yonel Hidalgo locates some of the cracks in the system in his country of origin, Cuba, seen from the point of view of someone who is already as much Italian as he is Cuban. Filosofía de la raza cósmica (Philosophy of the Cosmic Race) starts with a series of “property documents” collected since 1937 (before the Cuban Revolution) which register the name of the owner of domestic appliances and other objects... Yonel collects them and presents them, ironising on their use and their meaning in a Communist regime.

Without ceasing to walk and enjoy himself, always searching for the best conditions - Fermín Jiménez Landa, Anónimos cordiales (Anonymously Yours) which open up successively, like Matrioslka dolls, other ways of understanding and living. Anonymous letters sent to his friends, in which, in a threatening tone, he suggests or asks for insignificant changes (Dear Alberto, if you want me to, I’ll quit smoking, or, if you prefer it that way, I’ll smoke even more). At the same time, he proposes a solution to the problem of Desempatar en altura las dos torres más altas de Barcelona (Breaking the Tie In Height Between Barcelona’s Two Tallest Towers), by placing a Christmas tree on top of one of them. An action which is as subversive as it is absurd, a change in priorities which takes place after traveling to Lucca and learning what happened there at the beginning of the 14th Century, when the Guinigi family plants a few elms on the roof of their tower in order to gain height over all the buildings in the area.

Te quiero mucho (I Really Love You), by Kaoru Katayama, is a video shot in a bar, a meeting place for mostly gay Mexican and Chicano men, located in the centre of Los Angeles. There, Mexicans and Chicanos momentarily leave behind their assimilated masculine role, in order to allow the most sincere tenderness, their desires taking over, albeit briefly, over their prejudices. In parallel, it never ceases to be, both for Kaoru, who is originally Japanese although she has lived in Spain for the past two decades, and for us, an invitation to share this stage of the journey in which achievement, understood as learning, operates as a stimulus in order to continue discovering.

As a child, he had seen a bum asking his mother for some cake, and she had given it to him, and when the bum had gone down the road, the boy asked:

- Mother, who was that?

- It was a bum.

- Mom, I’ll also be a bum.

Jack Kerouac, On The Road

This is the story of one of the fellow travelers of Sal Paradise in On The Road, which he tells as a memory of the moment he loses his fear to speak his mind, taking advantage of his apparent ingenuity in order to provoke.

In a similar manner, Mochi Zamperoli gets ready by exercising her hair as a warning, a sign that she is getting ready to fight, aware of herself and ready to overcome all the obstacles which she doesn’t know, but senses. And Vanni Bassetti, who, starting with fumbling feet in Playground, barely capable of toeing a line, up until Anche se rido, non cè niente da ridere, which, with sweet effrontery tells us about other momentary realities, such as La danseuse or Duccio e Luigi.

And although...we spoke of stopping in Monterrey, Dean wanted to go all the way to Mexico City as soon as possible, and he also thought that the road would be more interesting later, always later... (Jack Kerouac, On The Road). I’ll Never Give Up Smoking, despite appearing to be the negation of something, is nothing more than a suggestion.

Alba Braza Boïls

www.albabraza.blogspot.com