era vulgaris — Alessio de Girolamo

ERA VULGARIS
30–09–2020 / 14-11-2020

Alessio de Girolamo (main room) presents a section of his works on language with the artist books MAMIOMEGA, THE PSYCHOTRONIK BOOK OF THE SEA, WONDER WATERS, and YOU THINK TO TURN AROUND. Letters and codes monumentalize into individual totemic entities through a succession of words, syllables, and ambiguous phrases that can exist autonomously, exceeding the logical structure of language and delivering the author to a different, archaic, and distinctly sensory dimension. The medium employed is a natural pigment normally used to fight exposure to electromagnetic fields; this sort of pigment - used against intangible entities - leaves its material traces and stains on the pages of the artist books, as well as on the human bodies that browse the books on view. The large letter “GIANT T” stands out against the
background of the space, becoming the backdrop for the video documentation of the performance WONDER WATERS. The inscription, composed of the 12 letters arranged clockwise, combines with the hydrogen of the water, swept with brooms by the inhabitants of Valletta, causing the dissolution of the pigment and the consequent annihilation of the word. The act of cleaning
materializes in the purification of silence (Triton Square, Valletta, Malta, 2019).

Curated by Stefano Non.

Photo credit: Jacopo Nocentini.

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