DUPLICE MORTE ELLERO ED ECOSISTEMA VISIVO

Duplice morte Ellero ed ecosistema visivo (“Double Death Ellero and Visual Ecosystem”) is a reflection on the theme of identity, and to what degree man can actually define its nature. The installation is made up of various elements: photographs, archival materials, documents, concept maps, collages, and a film divided into four chapters, whose first section (View From the Window at Le Gras) was made for this exhibition. The central core of the whole piece revolves around an investigation in which V is an inspector looking into the mysterious death of E. The complex mechanism that led to E’s demise (shooting himself with two revolvers fired simultaneously, using a system similar to the one invented by Umberto Ellero for mug shots, hence the title of the work) has, at the same time, disfigured his features, rendering him unrecognizable. This is the starting point for V’s investigation. Every element in this complex work is a clue leading to another clue, continuing to raise questions about the degree to which an individual’s identity can be reduced to his empirical form, and the degree to which anthropometry can actually describe someone. Examples are provided by Lichtloch #1, #2, #3, photos in which the faces of the people portrayed disappear, or the circular collage Colui che non è più alcuno ("He Who Is No Longer Anyone"), which introduces the visual ecosystem of the entire project: at first glance, the work seems made up of many patches of color, but upon closer observation one finds thousands of faces, group photos in which only further, meticulous inspection lets one make out the individuals. Developed using the same methods that Riccardo Arena has employed for all his recent projects, Duplice morte Ellero ed ecosistema visivo is a labyrinth resembling a story by Borges, each new element overlapping the previous one and amplifying the viewer’s sense of disorientation, to suggest that knowledge is not a tool for simplifying reality, but rather a path of investigation that constantly blends together the level of actual, personal experience with the information and research that each of us encounters through travel, archival studies, and chance discoveries.

Riccardo Arena was born in 1979 in Milan. An artist and globetrotter, he built his first works around the personal reexamination of long journeys and complex research projects that he would plan out on each occasion. After a long period spent in China, he currently lives and works in Buenos Aires. His most recent exhibitions include the Les Urbaines festival, Lausanne, 2011; on.Focus Riccardo Arena, Palais De Glace, Buenos Aires, 2010; Four Times a Tree, Mayr3 – Allegra Ravizza Art Project, Milan, 2009; 1918ArtSpace, Shanghai (CHINA), 2008.