A treatise on the apparatus and the artistic yield of Yervant Gianikian Angela Ricci Lucchi

• Published in: Millennium film journal 2016-09 (64), p.68
• Main Authors: De Cuir, Jr., Greg, De Rosa, Miriam
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aesthetics; Archives & records; Art exhibits; Artists; Cameras; Criticism and interpretation; Exhibitions; Gianikian, Yervant; Lucchi, Angela Ricci; Motion picture directors & producers; Motion pictures; Ricci Lucchi, Angela; Spectatorship
• ISSN: 1064-5586

No schematic of it has ever been published; it has never been put on display. [...]we must survey the artistic yield that it generates. Embodying the spirit of such a balance, the analytical camera is a sort of ghostly presence lingering throughout the oeuvre of the authors, which guides the spectator, to follow the formulation of Frédéric Bonnaud, a la rencontre du fantomes.4 The tension between presence and absence can be read in many works presented at the exhibition. Epitomizing the sense of lack, in the Fragments Gianikian & Ricci Lucchi gather images of extraordinary intensity, both in terms of cultural brutality and significance: the encounter between a bourgeois family and a Roma family shows the curiosity of the former towards the latter, who are scrutinized while camping on the Como lake shores as if exotic attractions available to a colonialist gaze (Fragments électrique 1 - Roms [homes]). Excerpted from a wider context that is never provided, the series Fragments Electriques proposes a number of filmic sequences where the slow pace of the image complements the absence of a narrative 'before' and 'after.' Besides the Fragments, the program conceived for this space featured six other installations by the artists, including: