JACOPO MILIANI

Portfolio

STATEMENT

My work focuses on how the viewer/spectator elaborates images and on the creation of different forms of language in response to them. For thisreason, my work addresses different issues connected to the field of ‘performativity’. Performance and Theatre are two important references in mywork and I aim to explore and utilize them as media to constantly question the fruition and the role of the audience/spectator. In my practice, collectiveimagination, which could be referred to an audience, engages with the personal and individual approach of the spectator.

In my own work, I always define myself as spectator, developing images and questioning their dominance in my personal imagination. Often theseimages will come back in my production, suggesting obsessions and how reality (or what we define under this term) might be dominated by constructedlanguage. I am interested in the Theatre as pure theatricality: the presence of bodies freed from representation. Asking if a non-representative language could bepossible in the relationship with the viewer, I use image and figuration to bring them to their own limits.

I aim to interact with the viewer not only through the gaze but the entire body. Actors, dancers, non-professional performers and specific viewers becomeprivileged spectators with whom I share personal imaginaries. I do not direct or choreograph them but I ask them to watch and interpret images, oftencoming from contemporary art references, avoiding representation and questioning how and if it could be possible. On the other hand, the ‘generalviewer’ of my work shares with these interpreters the resulting images and creating an empathy between the body and the experience of being presentin front of an image. The experience of temporally and ephemerally being present is not translated by acts or gestures, but can be constantly createdby the viewer in the personal reading of the images.

As a methodology, I choose not document performance pieces through video, but I rather prefer to stop movements (or recreate them) through theirtranslation in fixed images. In parallel of this assumption, I present the impossibility of repetition and re-enactment, marking temporality and specificityas categories of what could be experienced - and our constant reading of it - through the role of the author, the spectator and the audience.

CV

Jacopo Miliani born in Florence in 1979. Lives in Milan

STUDIES

2006 MA Fine Art Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London.

2003 BA Disciplines of Art D.A.M.S, University of Bologna

AWARDS

2015 Premio Cairo, nominated2011 Prize Ex3 Toscana Contemporanea Talent Price, nominated2008 D.E.M.O, GAI, TurinPagine bianche d’autore 2008, Tuscany selection.2005 Movin’Up, GAI Young Italian Artist Prize, Turin.

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE/ WORKSHOPS

2015 MDT, Stockholm

2013 Museo MACRO, Roma

2011 Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte, Tutor: The Otolith Group.

2009 Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte, Tutor: Peter Friedl.

2008-2009 Platform Garanti, Istanbul

2007 Advanced Course for Visual Art, Tutor: Joan Jonas, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como

EXHIBITIONS

Solo shows

2016 Kunsthalle Lissabon

2015 White Cubicle, curated by Joao Laia, George and Dragon, London

Not with a Bang, CAB, Grenoble

Fig.2, ICA studio, Londra

Odious Oasis, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

2014 Gust, curated by Stefano Raimondi e Mauro Zanchi, Baco project space, Bergamo

Easy as… Simple as, Frutta, Rome

2013 MACRO, Rome

Velan Centre, Turin

Knowledge is good, Videoteca GAM, Turin

2012 PlayMakesPlay, Frutta Gallery, Rome

Do you believe in mirages?, Ex 3, Florence

2011 Untitled (Untitled 1967), Curators: Eugenio Viola and Adriana Rispoli, MADRE Museum, Naples (performance)

2010 Galleria Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

Parallel words, irrelevant worlds, Project 38, Lucca

2009 Evet…Evet…, MARS, Milan

2008 Italian Wave, Artissima, Turin

2008 The Guest, Brown, Milan

2007 Battersea Art Centre, London

Group shows

2016 DRAF, London (Upcoming)

AIRTIME pavilllion at the Milan Design Triennale, (performance), curated by Juste Kostikovaite, Museo della Scienza, Milan, IT (upcoming)

Hetero-tropics, curated by Sara Giannini, different locations, Amsterdam, NL (upcoming)

People in a building wihtout the building , curated by Kunstverein Milano & Martina Angelotti, Ex Guarmet, Milan

FACE TO FACE. A selection of International Emerging Artists From the Ernesto Esposito Collection, curated by Eugenio Viola, Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno

Riviera, curated by Dallas and Caterina Riva, Istituto Svizzero, Milan

People in a buidling without the buidling, curated by Kunstverain Milan, Via Col Moschino, Milan

10th Nicaragua Biennal, Curated by Olivier Martinez Katz, Fundacion Ortiz Gurdian, Managua

2015 VX30, Curated by Anna Lovecchio and CHAN, Villa Croce, Genoa

Perform: Supposing Layers of Silence, (Performance Festival), Villa Romana/SpazioK, Florence

Italian and English Artists meet Milan, curated by Piero di Lecce, The workbench, Milan

Festival Sant’arcangelo, Rimini

Summer show, FRUTTA, Roma

Beauty Codes (order/disorder/chaos) act II, curated by Fondazione Giuliani, CURA and Kunsthalle Lissabon, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon

Trust, curated by Sonia Dermience, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenaghen

Beauty Codes (order/disorder/chaos) act I, a cura della Fondazione Giuliani, CURA e Kunsthalle Lissabon, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome

Unlearning to speak, curated by Thomas Cuckle, Kunstraum, London

30 + 5, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

AXOLOTLISM, curated by Sabel Gavaldon, NoguerasBlanchard, Madrid

Anyway Not Everyone Will Read it (performance), OUUNPO XIV: THE FUGUE, MDT e Museum of Dance, Stockholm

2014 A polyphonic wave of concrete materials flowing through the air, curated by João Laia, Fundação Manuel António da Mota, Oporto

FIVA, individual presentation curated by Federica Materlli, Festival International Video Arte, Biblioteca National de Buenos Aires, Buenos AiresWe are what we lost, OuUnPo Session curated by Sara Giannini and Per Huttner, CCSP Centro Cultural Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo,

Acting Truthfully under circumstances, Tenderpixel, London

Bye Bye Baj (performance), Black Coffee, Paris

ArtTransit, curated by Simone Frangi and Heinrich Luber, Via Farini, Milano and Zhdk, Zurich.

Live Works 2, Centrale Fies Dro IT

Score, curated by Sarra Brill and Anna Cestelli, MARCO, Vigo

Così Accade (As it Happens),curated by Joao Laia, Kim Nguyen, Marina Noronha, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino.

Arte Coni 100, curated by Maria Alicata e Bartolomeo Pietromacchi, different locations, Rome

FAX, curated by Joao Ribas and Carl Slater, KARST, Plymouth

Highlights, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

Display Landscape, curated by Flip, Sala Murat, Bari

2013 Villa Romana at Deutsche Bank Kunst Halle, curated by Angelika Stephken, Berlin

Grand Opening, Frutta, Rome

Mappa, page 2, curated by Adam Carr (for AB, a project by Gabriele De Santis), Nomas Foundation, Rome

Revolution is a Spinning Movement, Curator: Filipa Ramos, Appleton Square, Lisbon

Nippounpo, curated by Samon Takahasi and Per Huttner, Tokyo (different locations).

PastForward, curated by Alessandro Romanini, CAV Pietrasanta (LU).

Per combinazione, works from the collection of Pecci Museum, Curators: Stefano Pezzato and Marco Bazzini, Museo Pecci, Milan

Incontri, curated by Lorenzo Bruni, Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Lucca

Footnotes,Footstep, Curator: Valentinas Klimašauskas, CAC, Vilnius

From A Fig.5, Curator: Nicoletta Lambertucci and Vincent Honoré, David Roberts Art Foundation, London

2012 Yes we do, we believe in mirages, 98 weeks, Beirut

We will disappear you, Curator: Adam Carr, Frutta, Roma

Art-o-rama, Marsille

Waiting Panorama, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

Tutti al mare, Frutta Gallery, Rome

Carta Bianca, Tornare per partire, Curator: Lorenzo Bruni, Villa Croce, Genova.

Supplica per un’appendice, Curator: Angelika Stepken, Hanna Moller, Villa Romana, Florence

In the belly of the whale /Act III, Curators: Rosie Cooper, Ariella Yedgar, Montehermoso, Victoria

2011 In the belly of the whale, Curators: Rosie Cooper and Ariella Yedgar, Cartel, London

Searching Jack Smith (performance-lecture), TkH, Belgrade

Bikini, Curators: Komplot and Josephine Fabre, Komplot Bruxelles

Defective science, Curator: Gabriella Arrigoni, Sala Dogana, Genova

The wall, Curator: Pietro Gaglianò, Nosadella 2, Bologna

2010 Tuscany, Curator: Pierluigi Tazzi, Fondazione Baldi, Pelago (FI)

My favourite Things, Sottobosco, Venice

Ripresa, Curator: Pierluigi Tazzi, Fondazione Lanfranco Baldi, Pelago (FI).

Verbo Festival, Galeria Vermelho, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Childhood night, Curator: Rosie Cooper, Barbican Gallery, London

Reading Room, Curators: Cecilia Canziani, Ilaria Gianni,

Nomas Foundation, Rome

Perfect Courses and Shimmering Obstacles Curator: Yane Calovski, Tate Britain, London Biennal of Artist Book, Curator: Giorgio Maffei, SpoletoLoop Festival, Barcelona

2009 Thanksgiving, Peep-hole, Milan

Mitomania y identidad, Curators: Javier Duero and Alicia Jiménez, CCAI, Gijon

The Buffer Zone, Curators: Cecilia Canziani, Lexi Eberspacher, American Academy, Rome

La difference, Curator: Vincent Verlé, CAB Centre d’Art Bastille, Grenoble

Qui e altrove, Curators: Francesca Referza, Francesco Poli, Castelbasso (TE)

Nothing but the Show, Curator. Alessio Ascari, Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Senza rete, Curators: Caroline Corbetta, Lorenzo Benedetti, Santo Spirito in Saxia, Rome

Firenze Sommersa, Rotte Metropolitane, Curator: Giacomo Bazzani, Villa Romana, Florence

Swiss Cube #2, Curator: Salvatore Lacagnina, Swiss Institute, Rome

2008 Versus, Curator: Francesca Referza, Velan Centre, Turin

Per adesso noi siamo qua, Curator: Lorenzo Bruni, Villa Romana, Florence

Video Year Book, Curator: Renato Barilli, Bologna (screening)

Il rimedio perfetto, Curator Marco Tagliafierro, Galleria

Riccardo Crespi, Milan

Biennial of Young Artist from Mediterranean Countries, Bari

Continuum Electronica, Curator: Federica Matelli in collaboration with ZKM, Estruch, Barcelona

Unfair Fair, Curators: Cecilia Canziani, Vincent Honoré, Loto Arte, Roma

Loop Art Fair, Barcelona

Loop Art Fair, Barcelona

Les Rencontre Internationale, Centro El Aguila, Madrid

It’s A Sin: Films and Inspirations of Derek Jarman (Serpentine Gallery Public Programme), Curators: Tina Keane and Isaac Julien, The Gate Cinema, London (screening)

Video.it, Curators: Francesco Bernardelli, Mario Gorni, Salvatore Lacagnina, Francesco Poli (different locations).

2007 Invisible Miracles, Curators: Anna Daneri and Roberto Pinto, Careof, Milan

Les Rencontres Internationales, different locations, Paris (screening)

As it screams just please love me Curators: Caterina Riva, Francesco Pedraglio, Pieternel Vermmontel, FormContent, London

Selection of works

A slow dance without a name, 2016

Installation (project at Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon)Lacquered MDF screen, Brass, fabricPerformance Dança sem título with Antonio Torres

A slow dance without name is a study about language’s performative power through the act of deconstructing a performative-striptease action. The entire exhibition refers to this slow dance, called Dança sem título [Dance without title] (2016), which will take place during the opening and becomes the starting point for a reflection on the construction of desire.

Fags, 2016

Inkjet print 60x90 cm

The print is the only visual reference of the show A slow dance without name.The image shows a presence of an absence. The cigarettes thrown on a wet floor refer to the passage of time, to the action of waiting, during the staging of a dance and reflect directly on the role of the viewer-voyeur.

Dancers’ rope, 2016 (series)20x30x17 cm each

This last series of rope sculptures are based on two famous dancer, whose movement could be immediately imagined just pronouncing their name.Some sculptures are based on the anti-gravitational and sexual Vaslav Nijinsky’s gestures ( ‘I merely leap and pose’ from a quote of the Russian dancer).Other sculptures are based on the fluid underwater movements of the Hollywood acqua musical star, Esther Williams ( ‘Dangerous when wet’ from a quote of the famous swimmer).

Not with a Bang, 2015

Installation composed by three ‘fictional carpets’Carpets, resin, silver, marble, foam, papers

The exhibition is based on the short story ‘Not With a Bang’ written by Howard Fast.In the story, a man sees a hand appearing in the sky and switching off the sun.Three ‘fictional carpets’ represent the story combining the use of the display with suspended moment of figuration.

Ropes sculptures, 2015 (series)

Bronze (lost wax process) Different sizes

The sculptures represent impossible movement of different ropes.In my research the rope is compared to the human body.Both the object and the human body define their constantly changing shape under the strenght of different forces (tension, movement, gravity).

Contatti, 2015 (series)

Canvas, Acrylic Spray (80x100 cm each)

A rope ties the canvas, which is subsequently sprayed. The rope is removed.

Ropes and palms, 2015

UV print on aluminium sheets

105x130 cm

Rope and leaves, 2015

UV print on aluminium sheet

100x75 cm

Handling, 2015

Performance

Three ropes (small, medium, large size) are left in the exhibition space.The three dancers of the performance can individually decide if handle the objects or mime the movement of it.Their body performance is influenced by the length of the rope: both when it is physically present and when it is imagined.

Score, 2015

Installation

The exhibition changes every day. A series of Xerox lies in the floor on top of long stripes of fabric. Each Xerox image presents two hands manipulating a rope. The movement of the rope defines how to display the fabric.

Every day a vase with flower appears in the space, accumulating ephemeral elements which refers to time and the exhibition changes. Through assignments and arrangements the exhibition is compared to a choreographic score.

Three Times, 2014

Performance

Dancer: Jacopo Jenna

A dancer interplays with a visual and acoustic score based on the full audio track of Citizen Kane by Orson Welles (1941) and a projection of sentences, taken from Internet.The sentences are related to a screaming bird that appears towards the end of the movie in order to awake the audience.

Robert is dancing in the pavillon, 2014

Inkjet print (70x110 cm)

Bill is waving in Barcelona, 2015

Inkjet print (120x120 cm)

This work is part of and on-going series of photographic collages.Interior views of Mies Van Der Rohe’s architecture are graphically assembled with photos of performers realized by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Knowledge is good, 2013

Video monocanal 1 hour 44 minutes ColourBook 134 pages

In the work KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD - composed by a video and a book – there are illustrated more than 130 associations between the scenes of the movie National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and famous works of contemporary art.The movie is like an exhibition of masterpieces of contemporary art and the book is considered as a catalogue that completes this idea.

Shade, 2012Photographs, theatrical lights, pole

Wave, 2012Inkjet print on A4 papers

This series of works uses footages from the movie Paris is Burning (1989).Paris is Burning is a documentary film on the Vogue ball communities of New York at the end of 80’s. The installation of the photographs aims to recreate the movements and verbal gestures proper of Vogue dancers.

Stage Fright, 2013

PerformanceLength: 45 min

A dancer improvises and creates movements interacting with films and light projections.During the performance, I direct the projections (stopping, forwarding, rewarding etc.) of two 16mm films: the first one is a documentary about ‘Stage Fright’; and the second shows a re-enactment of ‘Oedipus Rex’ by Shakespearean actors.Only the movie Stage Fright has sound: a voice off that prevents and illustrates the problem of speaking and acting in front of an audience.

Easy as….simple as…, 2014

26 Photographs and 1 slideshow

26 photographs show a dancer wearing a parrot masque. She interprets and reenacts a body-alphabet ABECEDA created by the artist Karel Teige in 1926.In the slide show, the letters are arranged to compose a sentence by Carmelo Bene: ‘When we believe we are the ones saying something, we are being told ‘(Quando crediamodi essere noi a dire, siamo detti), in which the Italian writer-actor-director re-proposes the Lacanian assumption that the uttering subject is subjected to its own declarations.

Wrong?, 2014

InstallationMirrors, marbles, theatrical light

The three marble sculptures (cube, sphere, pyramid) are positioned on the ‘wrong’ mirroring surface (circle, triangle, square).A theatrical light creates shadows on the ceiling and walls.The work is based on the idea of representation, language and the Plato’s Cave.

Claws, 2012

Installation

Shanthung silks, bronze, Iroko wood, crystal, Etruscan ceramic, Guatemala Marble,etchings (15x15cm each)

Starting from a lucid-dream, I interpreted and remade the Luciano Fabro’s work Piedi (1968). The dream is based on a black and white photograph that I saw on a catalogue.

Evidences, 2012

Lambda print on aluminium (65x90cm)

This work is show as the final image of the lucid-dream experience.

Walking through the garden, 2014

Installation

Inkjet print on PVC 4x4 mSilver gelatin prints on baryta coated paperFrame: Italian cherry wood 40x60 cm 40x60 cm 60x40 cm

The installation shows a direct reference to Marcel Broodthaers and the idea of ‘decor’. The palm trees represent a constant in Miliani’s work and they seem to remain suspended between an exotic vision and a domestic/colonialized dimension. The artist shot the photographs while he visited the Botanic Garden of University La Sapienza in Rome. This place is not revealed in the work; on the contrary the images show an ambiguous and overloaded reality.

Screens, 2014

InstallationMDF screens, palm trees, theatrical lights

The installation is an ephemeral set for possible performance.Coloured screens hide and reveal palm-trees (Kentia - Howea Forsteriana).

Untitled (Untitled 1967), 2012

PerformancePerformer: Lucia RainoneMuseo Madre NaplesVoices Alfonso Artiaco, Maria Gloria Bicocchi, Maria Rosaria Bombace, Achille Bonito Oliva, Laura Cherubini, Mario Codognato, Federico Del Vecchio, Luisa Laureati, Sergio Lombardo, Ma-rio Pieroni, Student of Accademia di Belle Arti of Naples

In 1967 Jannis Kounellis showed a live parrot in front of a metal board and this piece was once exhibited in the Museo MADRE in Naples in 2004. I have never directly experienced this work.I presented the performance at MADRE in 2011. The audio of the performance is composed by a series of interviews recording voices and memories of some direct spectators of Jannis Kounellis’s piece. While the audio is diffused in the museum rooms, I asked to a contemporary dancer to engage with each work inside the museum, re-acting and interpreting the piece of 1967.The press-release of the event is an invitation letter sent to Jannis Kounellis in order to announce him the ‘mise en scène’ of one of his works.

Characters, 2014

SeriesFound Photographs and fabric

Different found-photographs show theatrical performance.The images are related to ephemeral folds of coloured fabrics.

Do you believe in Mirages?, 2012

Project at EX3 FlorenceInstallation

The idea of a ‘mirage’ as theatrical representation.The space is altered by changing the tone of the enlightenment. Two big dunes and a bronze script, recall the common idea of mirage.A soundtrack of diffent songs, associated to the idea of desire and mirage, is diffused inside the space (Aida by Verdi - Bella Ciao - Centro di gravità by Franco Battiato, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, Black and White by Michael Jackson, Love scene by Jerry Garcia Zabriskie Point OST).

Do you believe in Mirages?, 2012

Project at EX3 FlorencePerformance

Every day a dancer goes in the exhibition space, wears a costume and walks till the square in proximity of the Ex3 centre.Here, he wears headphones and play the same track-list diffused in the space, meeting different and unaware spectators.The square is a no-place close to a commercial mall, that, everyday at different times, becomes a stage for an apparition of a mirage.The work plays constantly with dislocation in time and space, approaching the viewer through the visual, audio and imaginative process.

Every moment is different in my mind, 2011

Triptych Three silver gelatin prints on baryta paper (60x90 cm each)

The photos show ephemeral and surreal movements of a black ball in front of white curtains.

Waiting Panorama, 2010Triptych (50x72 cm each)W-W, 2009Performance /workshop

In English TO WAIT and TO WEIGHT have the same pronunciation. The language shows how simple acts or behaviours are based on archetypical forms of knowledge.I asked to three different people to WAIT while they are WEIGHTING three heavy material objects (wood,stone, metal); without any further specific requests about their action.

The Parrots, 2008

Installation

Palm trees, round mirror, carpet,2 Reproductions of old prints (50x70cm).The reproductions figure parrots, each one with a script :1 ‘Don’t Say’ (pencil)2 ‘I didn’t Say So’ (pencil).

The project is a direct quotation of the piece Ne dites pas que je ne l’ai pas dit- Le Perroquet (1974) by Marcel Broodthaers. Through the logic of dissembling, doubling and altering Broodthaers’ work, I aim to focus on the theoretical-social debate concerning the object of art, its representation, fruition and historical process.