PAC Project Room presents Alice Guareschi's photographic series Je m'appelle Olympia, in a new a new site-specific installation especially conceived for its space.
Je m'appelle Olympia is an action for house lights performed by Alice Guareschi on just one occasion for a select audience of guests at the Olympia Music Hall, the legendary and iconic Parisian venue, on April 12th, 2012.
The 16 photographs that make up this series were shot on the same day, right after the live activation of the light choreography in the theatre's empty space, which involved all thirteen of the coloured lighting channels that are permanently integrated into the architecture. With a fixed framing, similar but not identical, following the precise original lighting score composed by the artist, the images present a sequence of different movements of lights in the auditorium.
The photographic series thus becomes a new synthesis of the image-idea and intention behind the performance: to activate a theatre when no show is happening on stage, to play it live, to reawaken its latent memory and the secret life that eludes the spectator’s gaze. By breaking down the duration of the action into photograms that can be viewed either separately or all together, the spatial arrangement of the work now makes it possible to embrace the overall idea at a glance.
Alongside the images, the exhibition also presents the invitation to the live action and the original artist's score, punctuated, on its staves, by the timing and movements of the lights, which replace the musical notes in a complex polyphony.
For the exhibition, but in a different location, the artist will also realize an unreleased performative action, a new piéce unique, this time based on sound: a further step in her research dedicated to the evocative power of subtraction and the off-screen.
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Alice Guareschi (1976) is a visual artist based in Milano. She holds a MA in Philosophy with a thesis on experimental cinema. Over the years her work has included a wide range of media such as writing, sculpture, site-specific installation and video. In 2005 she was resident artist at the Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon in Paris, in 2012 and 2015 at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Other residencies include Triangle, New York, and Kaus Australis, Rotterdam. In 2008 she was awarded with the Young Italian Art’s grant promoted by the Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum, and in 2022 she was among the recipients of the PAC2021 production grant, promoted by the DGCC of the Italian Ministry of Culture. Solo shows include Galleria Alessandro De March, Milano; Centre Culturel Français, Milano; Galleria Sonia Rosso, Torino; Castello di Rivoli, Torino; Microscope Gallery, New York; Galerie DREI, Cologne; Museo MAN, Nuoro; Spazio Treccani Arte, Roma. Selected group shows: Fondazione Re Rebaudengo, Torino; Palais de Tokyo, Parigi; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Torino; MAMbo, Bologna; GAMeC, Bergamo; Mart, Rovereto; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma; Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Parigi; Villa Arson, Nizza. Selected film festivals and screenings: Filmmaker Festival, Milano; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Italian Cinema London Festival; Mostra del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro; Milano Design Film Festival; La Fondazione, Roma; Triennale, Milano; Macro, Roma.
