Alberta Pane Gallery is pleased to present in its Parisian space, on January 22nd and 23rd, 2021, the new performance Si tu m’aimes, protège-moi by Romina De Novellis.

Romina De Novellis is a performer, visual artist, and researcher. She studies the body from an anthropological perspective and through the lens of the Mediterranean cultures. The artist uses ecofeminist theories(1) as a parameter to analyze and denounce the oppressive realities of our societies and the dichotomies: nature/humanity, femininity/masculinity, north/south, scientic/intuitive, power/bodies, establishment/cultures. Her intention is to highlight the reappropriation of the feminine features for both women and men, with the aim of questioning the dominant models.

This new performance is inspired by the peasant cultures of Southern Italy, in which women covered the ears of hens before practicing any violent gesture that could have shocked them and caused their infertility. Carefully, the woman used to take the hen on her knees and to protected her ears from the noise.

Today, in intensively farmed slaughterhouses, millions of chickens are exposed to deafening methods to make them lose consciousness and become insensitive to pain. Stunning with electric water baths is the most common way in the European Union for the slaughter of chickens: the birds are placed in transport containers and then hung up by both legs at the hock, which takes them to an electri ed water bath.

Romina De Novellis takes a critical look at any form of ritual. Popular celebrations, lightings (2), and traditions linked to religious ceremonies o en place the role of women in a secondary and submissive position. This explains why the work of this artist addresses the bodies, the gestures of care and the intimate moments of taking care of the other. Is during these moments of intimacy, silence, and care, that the feminine pole can arise showing another way of relating to nature, to the animal, and to the other. « Women make the children and they make dead, but they also make the animals ». (3) They « make » to the extent that they take care of the family and their loved ones and they give another vision to the social uses of the body.

In her new performance, Romina De Novellis completely transforms the gallery space by creating an installation with a strong emotional impact, in which she will replicate the gestures of animal protection. In this performance Romina De Novellis proposes a reection where eco-feminism becomes the key to read care, as a vision for life and as respect for the body of humans and animals both in life and in death. It is an invitation to think about ecofeminism as a key to get out of our current productivist and consumerist logic.

The stage of the theatre is empty. Marionettes and scenery remains lie on the ground. Their strings, still visible, have been cut.

“Instructions pour couper les ficelles”* (Instructions to cut the strings) brings together four artists from different backgrounds whose practice often reveals what hides behind the artwork’s production, what is offstage.

In Gayle Chong Kwan’s photographs of sets designed in her studio, in the João Vilhena’s skillful drawings (Dessins habiles), in the stairs of Gaetano Cunsolo, in the paintings of Léonard Martin we can recognize the backstage, the entrails of the work which are normally hidden, ignored, out of sight of the spectators.

The White Oval Arc and the Blind vistas series by Gayle Chong Kwan evoke a lunar landscape. This London based artist explores imaginal travels using recycled materials.
White Oval Arc opens a door towards a made-up world, conceived in homage to Méliès and his Trip to the Moon. The cut paper weaves an infinite scenography where mechanism remains visible.

Get on the pulpit is a series of small sculptures in the shape of a staircase: this architectural device from which all perspectives radiate. In his work, Gaetano Cunsolo deconstructs perspectives. When he decides to twist a staircase until it takes a circular shape, perspective becomes a confusion of vanishing lines where references tend to get lost. In these sculptures, the staircase is no longer an ascending device. It is perhaps an invitation to rethink the supports that perilously guarantee the established order of powers.

Moreover, Léonard Martin often uses photographs of sets built in his studio as a starting point for his paintings. For him, a painting is an instant taken from the images that constantly flow and flee. It is a way to linger over an image and give it substance and matter. In his animated films, in his installations and large-scale sculptures, characters do not hide their creature-like condition. And they confront without fear the great names of art history and literature such as James Joyce, Paolo Uccello, or Murasaki Shikibu. Shikibu is a Japanese writer and poet from the 11th Century, author of The Tale of Genji, a story that inspired the Variations Genji series.