OPENINGS Pietro Roccasalva
JAN TUMLIR
p 296 - 299. Artforum, Summer 2012, volume 50, no. 10. Opposite Page: Above: Pietro Roccasalva, Pietro Roccasalva, You Never Pietro Roccasalva, Jockey Full of Bourbon, Look at Me from the Place I Il Traviatore, 2011, 2003, pastel on paper on See You, 2012, neon, 1’2.2” x acrylic on canvas. Forex, microphone stand, 12’ 5.6”. 30.5 x 29.5”. resin, stuffed owl, paint. Installation view, Ferrotel, Pescarca, Italy. 2003.
FIRST, THERE IS THE PAINTING. For Pietro Roccasalva, this me- that compose it. !e waiter, the lemon juicer, the cupola-these may dium occupies the radiant center of an evere xpanding constellation simply be understood as instances of subject, object, and context of formal and conceptual analogies that takes in photography, video, caught in a moment of dedi"erentiation and commingling, but they sculpture, installation, and performance. All are derived from painting are also so much more speci#c than that. As it happens, the con$a- as more or less concrete extrusions of the picture plane, and all return tion of church architecture and kitchen implements has occurred to it at some point as material for further painting. !e artist’s skill in several times before in Roccasalva’s oeuvre (notably in Giocondita, a this department is irreproachable; evidently, he can render by hand digital animation from 2002), and the Traviatore, or trou badour, their anything he wants to see, but this is not to suggest that his imagination sacred/secular go-between, also boasts a long line of descent in the is unfettered or that its products can ever be described as “visionary.” artist’s work. !e image is from the outset a mnemotechnology already overloaded !e installation ]ockey Full of Bourbon, 2003, and the subsequent with archival data-Roccasalva terms it a “microchip”-and in his hands pieces relating to it may o"er one explanation of how Roccasalva’s vi- it becomes only more so. From one work to the next, the pathways of sual lexicon takes shape. Astrange stu"ed bird perches on a metal bar information processing and association grow increasingly convoluted in an enclosed bathroom, gazing via a mirror back at the viewer, who, as the cryptic details accumulate, and yet the threads that bind it all in turn, peers at the scene through an etant donnes-style peephole. together never snap. Closer inspection reveals that it is in fact an owl painted bright colors, Roccasalva is obviously interested in the play of genres in art as a as if that vigilant #gure of arcane wisdom had been strained through a means not only to isolate the worlds of people (portraiture) and things prism to emerge with the $amboyant coat of a parrot, a more frivolous (still life, architectura studies, landscape) but also to confuse them. breed and one that can speak, but without understanding. Able only to For instance, in his #rst solo gallery exhibition in the United States, at repeat, this hybrid creature was itself repeated in !e oval portrait: A David Kordansky Gallery this past winter, the artist presented #ve vir- ventriloquist at a birthday party in October 1947,2005, as a so% pastel tuoso paintings and pastel drawings titled It Traviatore, or a variation likeness inserted into a tableau vivant, where it was observed by an ac- thereof (all 2011), that depicted the #gure of a restaurant waiter hold- tual seated young woman and a wildly unkempt child, who faced the ing a silver serving dish with one hand, li%ing its hemispherical cover opposite direction. !at work’s subtitle is li%ed from the title of a 1990 with the other to reveal a silver lemon juicer. !e two domed photograph by Je" Wall of a female ventriloquist holding a childsize objects nestle together like matryoshka dolls or Chinese boxes, and dummy, but in Roccasalva’s tableau vivant, the child is more explicitly their shiny surfaces re$ect, in turn, a church cupola that ostensibly modeled on the #endish mascot of Heinrich Ho"mann’s collection of overarches the scene, thereby clinching the mise en abyme. In two cautionary tales, Del’ Struwwelpeter (1845), whose grotesque appear- works where the waiter also li%s the striated top from the juicer, we ance is the result of talking back and never listening to his parents’ may perhaps imagine another smaller waiter inside it doing the same, advice. And so it goes: !ese two actors as living embodiments of the and so on. !is sort of Escher-esque conceit is quickly grasped, but picture world will be absorbed into yet another picture, another oval one is still le% to grapple with the striking idiosyncrasy of the forms portrait, this time painted with the child staring directly at us. With every pass between the sheer optical plane and the thick world of and a mandolin into a small rowboat. To complete the scale shi%, things, the image undergoes a process of aesthetic readaptation that a recently wedded couple posed amid these various items on the steadily builds on itself, while drawing in references from every side. exhibition’s opening day, thereby conjoining the nature morte with the At the center of each of these works, a #gure meets and returns the tableau vivant. !e husband sat in the rowboat, his chin resting on viewer’s gaze, opening a channel between actual and imagined space his #st, while his wife stood nearby but facing away, dressed in a white that always threatens to lead us astray. A work in the Kordansky gown and holding alo% a tennis racket, as if frozen in midplay. !e show reiterated this theme: Facing out the window and into the street, somewhat chaotic, cluttered design of the mise-en-scene that joined a quote from Lacan’s 1964 seminar “!e Line and Light” spelled it these static embodiments of la vita contemplativa and la vita activa out for us, twice, in purple-blue neon: YOU NEVER LOOK AT ME served to remind those in the know (and those who had read the FROM THE PLACE I SEE YOU. !e letters are arranged in a #gure gallery statement) that the separated lovers in “!e Strange Young eight running legibly forward, then illegibly backward, as if to high- Neighbours” are reunited in the course of a near-fatal accident. light the perceptual ri% that threatens to undermine the empathetic Sharply alternating between intimations of tragic loss and of comic union between artist and audience. !e lack inherent in every act of ful#llment, Goethe’s tale functions here as an allegorical re$ection on looking is here seized as a productive principle, however, for it is also the role of accident and chance in the historical evolution of art forms. where the viewer’s thwarted desire meets the questionable consola- More speci#cally, it allows one to ponder once more the distinction tions of the trompe l’oeil. It is an idea that Roccasalva takes to heart, as between “objective chance,” as represented by the Surrealist trouvaille, the potential for “seeing things,” for mistakes on the part of both the or found object, and the “manufactured chance” of Duchamp’s ready- producers and the recipients of pictures, is at the core of his prac- mades. !e shadow of Duchamp looms largest over the installation’s tice. Roccasalva li%ed the title of this exhibition, “!e Strange Young most enigmatic components, which here were strewn around one side Neighbours,” from a stand-alone chapter within Elective A&nities, in of the boat. Vaguely resembling bisected garlic bulbs, these reiterate this way enfolding his works in Goethe’s narrative of love lost and the domed shapes within the paintings and recall the Fountain of found. !e Romantic theme was taken up most directly in Untitled 1917, an impression reinforced by the ceramic appearance of their (Just Manied Machine #1), 2011, a large-scale sculptural installation pristine white #nish, as well as by the installation’s title. Delivering a that graced the center of the space. !e various objects that compose polemical counterpoint to Duchamp’s meditations on art as a libidinal it are derived from the standardized elements of the pictorial still drive that must be continually rechanneled, Roccasalva prompts us to life-in fact, they are loosely based on one glimpsed in the opening shot consider the aesthetic possibilities of consummation. Once the pas- of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short #lm La Ricotta (1963 )-but retro#tted in sage from virgin to bride is a fait accompli, as it supposedly was size and substance to the real and existing world. Accordingly, a basket for the couple on display, the avant-garde dream of historical liquida- turns into the carriage of a hot air balloon crash-landed on the gallery tion, of starting anew, must be renounced. From here on in, ancient, $oor, a bunch of grapes into a cluster of $oor-bound purple balloons modern, and contemporary forms are subject to an endlessly
Pietro Roccasalva, Untitled (Just Married Machine #1), 2011, wood, acrylic resin, rush, fabric, steel. Installation view, David Kordan- sky Gallery, Los Angeles, 2012. Photo: Brian Forest !e lack inherent in every act of making is seized as a productive principle. It is an idea the Roccasalva takes to heart, as the potential for mistakes on the part of both the pro- ducers and recipients of pictures is at the core of his practice.
Pietro Roccasalva, The Fourteen Stations (You Pietro Roccasalva, Jockey Full of Bourbon II, 2006, Never Look at Me from the Same Place I See You) neon, resin, microphone stand, acrylic on paper on (detail), 2010 Forex, mirror, stuffed owl, paint. Fourteen notebooks, charcoal, graphite, and acrylic Installation view. Galerie Johnen + Schötte, Cologne. on paper. Each 15.75 x 13.75 x 1.75”. recombinant process of propagation. massive tumorlike growth sprouting from the head of the waiter in !e crashed hot-air balloon is emblematic of this condition, and it, the #rst painting on view demonstrates this. Here, in a single isolated too, has been revisited by Roccasalva on several occasions: #rst in his detail, entire worlds form and deform, as academic cross-hatching 2007 #lm Truka, which appropriates a shot of the ground as seen from breaks into the faceted planes of Cubism and then fragments still fur- a plummeting aircra% in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1969 #lm Andrei Rublev, ther into a Mandelbrot mosaic of digital tiling. Full of accidents both and later in Truka all-over (!e Formula o%he Phantom), 2010, in chosen and made, Roccasalva’s “Just Married Machine” is devoted to which a pair o'nights in full armor spray-paint each other lobster the cultivation of mutant strains and, it would seem, is already partly red in front of an enlarged still from that #lm. !e owl-cum-parrot re- running itself. appears as well in the installation Jockey Full ofBourbon II, 2006, this time perched on a twisting neon tube whose eccentric, room-span- ning shape is derived from the artist’s aforementioned digital anima- tion, Giocondita. (It is modeled a%er the route of a shot that traverses the facade of a church with a lemon-juicer dome.) At each stage, these variousn motifs must conform to a whole new program while retain- ing traces of the last. In a di"erent artist’s hands, this process would yield only entropic degeneration, a generalized blur, but here, with every step from the point of origin-wherever it might leadthe resolu- tion stays crisp, resulting in forms that are increasingly anomalous and at the same time hyperarticulated and vivid. For Roccasalva, this is e"ectively a means of creation, however compromised, within what he has described as a “closed universe.” Even if the artist sounds a familiar postmodern refrain, the $oodgates of citation are never fully opened to the point of “anything goes”; whatever gets in is carefully selected to work with what is already there and what is still to come, like variables plugged into a sensi- tive, still-developing algorithm. Within this scheme, the Duchampian maxim “To make is to choose and always to choose” may be reversed, for everything newly chosen is e"ectively remade as a result of enter- ing into communion with everything already chosen. It is precisely in what Roccasalva makes from his choices that something else, some- thing other than what is simply given, comes into view. Even a
Mizota, Sharon, “Art review: Pietro Roccasalva at David Kordansky Gallery,” Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2012, p. D18
The piece’s shifts in scale are fun — are they grapes or balloons? — but it feels a bit unfocused.
More intriguing are a suite of paintings and drawings depicting a waiter holding a citrus juicer on a tray. The images exhibit any number of classical drawing techniques, but it’s the reflections of a grand architectural space in the tiny silvery surface of the juicer—another art historical convention—that reveal a glimpse of the view from the place where the painting sees us.
-- Sharon Mizota
David Kordansky Gallery, 3143 S. La Cienega Blvd., Unit A, L.A., (310) 558-3030, through March 24. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.davidkordanskygallery.com
Photos, from top: Pietro Roccasalva's "You Never Look at Me From the Place I See You," 2012. Credit: From the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. Photograph by Brian Forrest. Pietro Roccasalva's "Il Traviatore," 2011. Credit: From the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. Photograph by Brian Forrest. *ULIÀQ-RQDWKDQ´7KURXJKWKH/RRNLQJ*ODVVµ Frieze0DUFKS Through the Looking Glass
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EHFRPHV &KULVW KLPVHOI SUHVHQW LQ WKH )DXONQHUEXW3LQN)OR\GLQWKHO\ULFVIURPWKHLU 8QOHVVRWKHUZLVHVWDWHGDOOFRPPHQWVDWWULEXWHG WR3LHWUR5RFFDVDOYDDUHWDNHQIURPDQLQWHUYLHZ URRP DQG VWDULQJ EDFN DW XV $QWRQRYD VRQJ¶7LPH· ¶$QG\RXUXQDQG\RXUXQ EHWZHHQWKHDXWKRUDQGDUWLVW0LODQ'HFHPEHU JRHV IXUWKHU VWLOO DVVHUWLQJ WKDW UHYHUVH 7RFDWFKXSZLWKWKHVXQ%XWLW·VVLQNLQJ5DF 6LWXD]LRQHG·RSHUDWUDQVODWHVDV¶ZRUNVLWXDWLRQV· EXW¶ZRUNVLWHV·LVPRUHDSSURSULDWHDVXVHGLQDQ SHUVSHFWLYH WKURXJK ZKLFK ZH VHH PDQ\ LQJDURXQG7RFRPHXSEHKLQG\RXDJDLQ· LQWHUYLHZEHWZHHQWKHDUWLVWDQG(GRDUGR*QHPPL LQ$OHVVDQGUR5DERWWLQLHG3LHWUR5RFFDVDOYD VLGHV RI DQ REMHFW LQ D VLQJOH LQVWDQW LV LQ 7KHVXQDV\PEROVRFRQVLVWHQWO\UHWXUQHGWRE\ -53²5LQJLHU=XULFKS (JLGLR&RFFLPLJOLRDQG.HOO\:RRGV,Q*HQHYD1R IDFWDGHPRQVWUDWLRQRI*RG·VRZQWLPHOHVVQHVV WKHDUWLVWLVVXEMHFWWRDZKROHVOHZRISHUFHSWX 2QH&DQ+HDU PIETRO ROCCASALVA 1970 born in Modica. Italy, lives and works in Milan. Italy Pietro Roccasalva thinks of himself primarily as a painter, and yet the artist’s work hardly abides by any of the usual laws of painting or even art-making. Picture, if you 2009 ϱϯƌĚŝŶƚĞƌŶĂƟŽŶĂůƌƚ can, a kind of rhizomatic Matryoshka doll, whose contents are liable to open up and džŚŝďŝƟŽŶͬ>ĂŝĞŶŶĂůĞĚĞsĞŶĞnjŝĂ SURJUHVVLYHO\ÁRZRXWLQDQ\JLYHQGLUHFWLRQDQG\RXEHJLQWRJHWDVHQVHRIKRZ ͬDĂŬŝŶŐtŽƌůĚƐ Roccasalva works. It is tempting to refer to his practice as ‘intuitive’, but that would be misleading. Rather, it is a question of an almost dizzying, continually evolving internal 2008 DĂŶŝĨĞƐƚĂϳ͕ ƵƌŽƉĞĂŶŝĞŶ- logic that proceeds in one mutational mise-en-abyme after another. Thus, if he is known nial of Contemporary Art WRZRUNLQGLVFULPLQDWHO\ZLWKLQVWDOODWLRQVFXOSWXUHSKRWRJUDSK\ÀOPSHUIRUPDQFH and drawing, in addition to painting, that is because the above-mentioned logic unpre- dictably determines the artist’s next move, which often strays far beyond the remit of www.galerieartconcept.com mere paint on canvas. www.galleriazero.it Take, for example, the work Jockey Full of Bourbon (2006), which consisted of an www.iels.be installation in a bathroom featuring a peephole that looked out onto an exact replica of www.Johnengaterie.com the bathroom on the other side, with, however, an owl perched on a stick in front of the mirror staring back at the viewer. Originally inspired by a circular window from an ear- lier multi-media installation inside a church, Jockey Full of Bourbon itself went on, by some pirouette of personal logic, to mutate into the tableau vivant The Oval Portrait. A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October 1947 (2005), which consisted of a couple, a woman and a child, sitting in front of a photo of the original church window, which now featured an image of the owl in the bathroom as seen through the peephole. As for The Skeleton Key. 2006 5RFFDVDOYD·VSDLQWLQJVZKLFKDUHKHDYLO\LQÁXHQFHGE\DQLQWHUHVWLQHDUO\&KULVWLDQ ^ŽŌƉĂƐƚĞůŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž icons and the graphic linear style of such compatriot forebears as Gino de Dominicis, ϰϴ͘ϱdžϱϴĐŵ WKHLUÀJXUDWLYHQDWXUHFRPSOHPHQWVKLVVWUDQJHDQGLQLPLWDEO\RUJDQLFSUDFWLFHPDNLQJ The Skeleton Key II, 2007 it a quasi-mystical affair. ^ŽŌƉĂƐƚĞůŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž ϳϬdžϱϬĐŵ Chris Sharp The Skelaton Key III, 2007 WĂƐƚĞůŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž ϭϰϳdžϭϴϵĐŵ The Skeleton Key IV, 2007 ;ƉĂƌƚŽĨƚŚĞ/ŶƐƚĂůůĂƟŽŶ The Silent Woman. 2007) ĐƌLJůŝĐŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž ϯϵdžϱϬĐŵ 260 Jockey Full of Bourbon II, 2006 Neon, resin and handpainted feathers, microphone pole, ĂĐƌLJůŝĐŽŶƉĂƉĞnjƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž͕ŵŝƌƌŽƌ ϮϵϬdžϲϴϬdžϱϴϬĐŵ /ŶƐƚĂůůĂƟŽŶǀŝĞǁ͕:ŽŚŶĞŶн^ĐŚŽƩůĞ Cologne Jockey Full of Bourbon, 2006 WĂƐƚĞůŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶ&ŽƌĞdž ϯϯdžϰϱĐŵ Z, 2008 dĂďůĞĂƵsŝǀĂŶƚ͕ŽīƐĞƚƉƌŝŶƚŽŶƉĂƉĞƌ͕ ĨƌŝĞĚƌŝĐĞďĂůů͕ŽŝůŽŶĐĂŶǀĂƐ͕ŶĞŽŶ ŝŵĞŶƐŝŽŶƐǀĂƌŝĂďůĞ /ŶƐƚĂůůĂƟŽŶǀŝĞǁ͕ WĂƌŬǀĞŶƵĞƌŵŽƌLJ͕EĞǁzŽƌŬ The Oval Portrait. A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October 1947, 2005 ^ŽŌƉĂƐƚĞůŽŶƉĂƉĞƌŽŶƉĂŶĞů ϵϭdžϭϱϬĐŵ Daneri, Anna, “Skeletons in the Closet,” Mousse, Issue 17, February-March 2009, pp. 98-99 Skeletons _ in the closet Pietro Roccasalva I’ve never seen Pietro’s house, it might not even exist... To me, Pietro ‘s house is his studio. When he’s working he can stay shut up there for weeks on end, without answering the phone, avoiding all contact with the outside world. That’s how I imagine him, focused on his thoughts, reading, taking notes, and painting with the precision of a medieval scribe. $QGOLNHLQDJDPHRIPLUURUVOLIHLVUHÁHFWHGLQWKHZRUNWKDWZUDSVDURXQGLWVHOIDVFDQRQO\KDSSHQLQ3LHWUR·VZRUNVKRS moving from reference to reference as if along a spiral. But these are never literal references, as might appear from the images that DFFRPSDQ\XVKHUHVKRZLQJWKHVWXGLRDIWHUDÁRRG WKH\DUH´SUHJQDQFLHVµFORWWLQJVRIVLJQDQGPHDQLQJWKDWRQO\VXSHUÀFLDOO\ seem what they are not. The parrot in many pieces is actually an owl trying to avoid recognition, the photographs are often actually pencil portraits or paintings, snapshots of a catastrophe instead depict a moment of hapiness, becoming a Raft of the Medusa whose sense of trajedy is capsized...It’s not just images that can be deceptive, therefore, but things themselves, or houses...So perhaps it’s not so accurate to say that they represent us, because we could be quite different or want to conceal what we are not. It is a question of language, not of position... ´ LWLVLQYDLQWKDWZHVD\ZHVHHZKDWZHVHH ZKDWZHVHHQHYHUUHVLGHVLQZKDWZHVD\$QGLWLVLQYDLQWKDWZHDW- WHPSWWRVKRZE\WKHXVHRILPDJHVPHWDSKRUVRUVLPLOLHVZKDWZHDUHVD\LQJ WKHVSDFHZKHUHWKH\DFKLHYHWKHLUVSOHQGRULVQRW WKDWGHSOR\HGE\RXUH\HVEXWWKDWGHÀQHGE\WKHVHTXHVQLDOHOHPHQWVRIRIV\QWD[µ 0LFKHO)RFDXOWThe Order of Things: An Arche- ology of the Human Sciences, Knopf Publishing Group, 1994, p.9. 7KHVNHOHWRQSRNLQJRXWRI3LHWUR·VFORVHWLVDQROGUROORIÀOPWKDWFRQWDLQVDPRQJRWKHUWKLQJVWKHIRXUWHHQSKRWRVLQ question, originally meant for an accident report. They “magically” number fourteen, no more, no lessbut are not the stations of the Cross... the mounting numbers accompanying the images instead refer to the fourteen mountains in a world over 8000 meters high, DQGUHSUHVHQW3LHWURE\VXEWUDFWLRQ ´RIWHQWKHVSDFH\RX·UHLQKDVQRWKLQJWRGRZLWKZKDW\RXDUH ,ZDVHYHU\ZKHUH,ZDV recording a period of euphoria”. “Pietro Roccasalva, 2009 Venice Biennial (exh. cat.), 2009, Pietro Roccasalva p. 144” Born in Modica Italy, in 1970. Lives and works in Milan, Italy Pietro Roccasalva’s artistic research is studded with a wide range of references, from popular culture to the history of art, from ancient philos- ophy to cinema. Owls disguised as parrots, gi- gantic Sicilian rice croquettes, lemon-squeezers turned into church domes, and stilllifes in which bread takes the form of a skull are all found in his symbolically laden, visionary, enigmatic world. Different media, including video, photography, sculpture, and performance, are combined with painting, giving rise to compos- LWH LQVWDOODWLRQV WKDW WKH DUWLVW GHÀQHV DV ´ZRUN situations.” This expression summarizes the possibility of making visible the various stages during which the pictorial image is manifested. In Roccasalva’s methodology, every work triggers and nourishes another work; his is a constant, generative proces of transformation. The Skeleton Key (2006-2009) is a series of SDLQWLQJVWKDWUHYROYHDURXQGWKHÀJXUHRIDOLIW DWWHQGDQWZKRDSSHDUHGIRUWKHÀUVWWLPHLQ5RF- casalva’s art in a 2004 performance. Inspired by D FKDUDFWHU IURP WKH ÀOP Four Rooms (1995), this individual embodies a condition of peren- nial change, one in which, despite moving, you make no progress. Through continuous overlays, the image is molded, distorted, and fragmented, using a language inspired by the techniques of digital elaboration to achieve a new morphing. ,QLWVPHWDPRUSKRVLVWKHÀJXUH·VIDFHVHHPVWR enclose the paradox and absurdity of human exis- tence, forced into senseless movement. [CB] Pietro Roccasalva, O.H., 2004. Tableau vivant. Photo Mario Di Paolo. Courtesy the artist, and ZERO..., Milan 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 MAP/Issue 17/Spring 2009 Rabottini, Alessandro, “Pietro Roccasalva: Belief Systems.” MAP. Number BELIEF 17, Spring 2009. pp, 68-73 SYSTEMS Alessandro Rabottini connects with the complex installations of the still life in Europe from the 17th century. They fol- of Pietro Roccasal!a. taking low a trajectory that traces the history of western painting, a mind-boggling journey from the Byzantine icon to Pierre Klossowski, identifying a mythical aura in the images. It is here that beliefs are through the many narratives deposited and revealed. of this artist’s work. It is not by chance that many ot Roccasalva’s works are developed around original and generative What kind of political value can hermetism have today? myths centering on time. as in his frequent reference to the The work of Pietro Roccasalva, an Italian artist born in image of Zurvan, the primitive divinity that symbolises the Modica in 1970, who now lives and works in Milan, asks RULJLQRI LQÀQLWHWLPHDQGVSDFHLQWKHXQLYHUVHRI 3HUVLDQ this question in his work, despite its apparent distance mythology. While in Greek mythology the god of time from contingent reality. Cronos is driven by an insatiable cannibalistic appetite that A vast arsenal of media, including painting, makes him eat all his progeny: Zurvan is driven by a feeling drawing, sculpture, and the tableau vivant, is adopted in of indifference for what is good and what is bad, plac- Roccasalva’s complex installations, a series of mises en ing him in the Nietzschean tradition of time as an eternal scene somehow connected to one another, While they cycle. appear to be ‘closed systems’, they neverthess reveal a In conceiving his work as an entire body, the strict analogy with the structure of medieval allegories. parts of which are inextricably interconnected, Roccasa- This kind of similarity is revealed on a deeper lva adopts the image of time as cyclical and projects the level than an iconographic one, although Roccasalva spiral structure generated by this doctrine onto his working harbors a taste for the bizarre, mysterious and grotesque method, producing a group of works that occasionally that recalls gothic imagery and crowded copulas of men, appear like progressive germinations, like moments in a animals and mechanical extensions of the body. And it broader conceptual architecture. is precisely that deep level of relationship that connects In just a few years, Roccasalva has produced a his images with the texts and meanings that both inspire VHULHVRI H[KLELWLRQVDQGLQVWDOODWLRQVZKLFKKHGHÀQHVDV and predate them. It is a relationship of a substitutive and situozioni d’opera (work situations). In these, his very VXEVWDQWLDOQDWXUH WKHLPDJHVRFFXS\DVSHFLÀFVSDFHDQG SHUVRQDOLFRQRJUDSKLFUHSHUWRLUHÀQGVH[SUHVVLRQ7KDW have a precise meaning within a broader system in which ZKLFKLVDVFXOSWXUHZLWKLQDVSHFLÀFFRQÀJXUDWLRQ they exist as substantial substitute. That is the system of becomes, in a following incarnation. a photographic im- allegory. age that will then serve as a model for a pastel or an oil Pietro Roccasalva’s installations are often char- painting, until the latter acts as a point of departure for the DFWHULVHGE\DXWRQRPRXVZRUOGVÀOOHGZLWKÀJXUHVDQG development of a tableau vivant. This system accords to SUHVHQFHVWKDWUHIHUWRWUDGLWLRQVDQGVSHFLÀFLFRQRJUDSKL- the generative principal that reinforces the idea that icono- cal, philosophical and literary mythologies, ranging from graphic invention is a ‘consequential’ process throughout ancient rhetoric to cynical thought, from Christian mysti- which tradition is expressed by fractures and moments of cism to the moral doctrine underlying the development continuity. 5RFUDVDOYDGHÀQHVVLUXD]LRQHG·RSHUDDVDJURXSRI ‘objects, furnishings, audiovisuals, actions, tablaux vivants, etc. that cohabit with other paintings and decline all the phases of painterly creation’. This is the reason why the artist, in arder to exemplify his own working method.. refers to the gothic image of the cathedral as a building site where generations succeed one another in the construction of an architecture that transcends and survives them. It absorbs the centuries like a mechanism. The ‘generative’ and transformational methodology at the foundation of Roccasalva’s work, recalls two movements related to the dynamics of·creation’. both within the history of art and mythology. While the architecture of gothic cathedrals LVFRQÀJXUHGDVDVXFFHVVLRQRIIRUPDODJJUHJDWLRQVOD\HUHG one on top of the other over time. so it is that many primitive nanatives and religious texts are the result of actions such as the germination or expulsion of a body by or from another. Eve. for example, was generated from one of Adam’s ribs, while Cronus’ tyranny begins with his castrating his father Ura- nus. Cannibalism and incest are also constants in Nordic and Greco-Roman cosmogony. If we go back to our point of departure. hermetism, how can we possibly interpret this type of attitude as pro- IRXQGO\SROLWLFDOZKHQLWPD\HDVLO\EHGHÀQHGDV¶KHUPHWLF· when placed in relation to a more general contemporary meth- odology for producing messages and meanings’ Roccasalva’s art appears to be a complex ritual of evoking and reintroduc- ing images and meanings that lie just beneath the surface of history. infesting it like formal metastases and conceptual fantasies. In particular, he appears to operate a procedure of perversion over these images through the expedient of parody. The Christian iconography of maternity. for example. is impli- cated in a tableau vivant entitled ‘The Oval Portrait’, 2005. ‘A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October 1947’, is repro- Study for Il Traviatore, 2008, graphite and tempera on paper duced as an eponymous oil painting later that same year. Here, the motif of the divinity generated by immaculate concep- tion which is made mundane and carnal in relation to birth. is The idea at the foundation of Pietro Roccasalva’s work. that is. inverted: the child. having assumed the appearance of Struw- this history of shapes and representations coinciding with a historiog- welpeter (the character, who refuses to cut his nails and hair, raphy of the survival of mythologies and ideologies that these cany in a created by German psychiatrist and author Heinrich Hoffmann continuous alternation of incarnations that escape both rationality and LQKLVHSRQ\PRXVERRN EHFRPHVDVLJQLÀFDQWYHFWRU secularisation, as well as the history of the modernist avant-garde, are of the principal of entropy. It no longer incarnates the future doubly rooted. VDOYDWLRQRI KXPDQLW\ RQWKHFRQWUDU\LWSUHÀJXUHVLWVHQGDQG So, on the one hand all his work is imbued with readings of makes it visible. philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze. We may also Analogously. the photographic work ‘Study for Z’ and add Carmela Bene’s work on tradition and the translation of the text for the tableau vivant ‘Z’, both 2007, which served as models for theatre. thus greatly indebted to postmodern theories that view the char- the soft pastel ‘Untitled’, 2008, sees the Trinitarian image of acter in a text as an arena for projection and interpretations that build it Zurvan and his twin sons Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu in the act itself of its reception. (both divinities and respectively benign and malign) trivialised On the other, Roccasalva makes use of a structure conceptu- in the impersonation by two true twins and their biological fa- ally close to this philosophical tradition but distant in time. Thus, ancient ther. all dressed in football referee uniforms. The work copied rhetoric, intended as a method that is able to individuate both a principal is Andrej Rublev’s famous ‘Holy Trinity’, 1410-1470. In Rocca- of truth and its contrary, is consequently useful for invalidating a mean- salva’s version, the mythic image of the cosmological battle for ing through the same complex, extreme and formal elaboration. dominion over creation has been cast as a parody represented And it is precisely this form of scepticism towards any concept by the referees. who are intended as symbols of an analogous that lies at the heart of this artistic process. It is a scepticism that. in form of dominion over time. lasting for the length of a match order to express itself. does not strike at the object of its examination, ‘Z’, 2008, tableau vivant, offset print on paper, fried rice ball, oil on canvas, neon installation view, Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2008 RUWKHUHOLJLRXVSKLORVRSKLFDOVFLHQWLÀFRUSROLWLFDO about illusion. or as an illusion that tells the truth. systems that pretend to produce systems of truth. but 0\VWLÀFDWLRQDQGGHP\VWLÀFDWLRQOXQDF\DQGOXFLGLW\LOO- at their own reproductive system, the iconic and visual ness and cure’. Which leads one to consider the centrality representation. While this artist’s work adopts ideologi- of the concept of ‘simulacrum’ in the entire works of this cal discourse as its polemic subject, it is also true that the artist. understood in it’s etymological sense as the origin method used to deactivate this discourse is paradoxical: it of mimetic and pictorial representation starting with is unhinged by its own exacerbation, by a funereal baroque the appearance of a dead person. and hyperbolic mise en scene of its primary instrument of This is why, upon examination of the gloomy legitimisation which is representation. and sceptical nature of Roccasalva’s mises en scene, it can Regarding his most recently elected medium, be useful to connect his practice to a tradition evoked by painting, Roccasalva adopts the same methodology used Gary Tinterow with regard to Bacon: ‘A proponent of an by ancient rhetoric to deconstruct meanings, starting with existentialist reading of Bacon’s work, O’Doherty wrote their own, paradoxical validation. WKDW%DFRQ·V¶LVWKHÀUVWPDMRUH[SUHVVLRQLQSDLQWRIDVHQ- At this point is it possible to maintain that an sibility [Sadism?] that runs from de Sade, through Rimbaud experience so rooted in tradition and erudition, and that and Genet-’, adding that Jean Genet is probably the best presupposes detailed knowledge of shapes and their mean- comparison since, ‘Bacon is attached to a style of ceremo- LQJLVLQWLPDWHO\LQVSLUHGE\DQHPDQFLSDWLQJÀQDOLW\" QLRXVSUHVHQWDWLRQWKDWDOORZVKLPWRH[WHQGWKHGHÀQLWLRQ ,QKLVWH[WIRUWKHÀUVWPRQRJUDSKRQWKHDUWLVW of life to include the underworld of rape, suicide and %DUU\6FKZDEVN\FLWHV5RFFDVDOYD·VIUHTXHQWLGHQWLÀFDWLRQ murder’. It is the ceremonious staging that occurs in the with the sophist Gorgias and places his practice between work, the luxurious or formal backdrop, that allows for the ‘art as illusion [and] art as truth. Or rather, as the truth depictions of such horrors.’ 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 The Oval Portrait. A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October 1947, 2005 Tableau vivant, soft pastel on paper on panel, installation view Vila delle Rose, Bologna, 2005 MAP/Issue 17/Spring 2009 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 Myrrhina, 2008 ÁRRUGHDZLQJIULHGULFHEDOOQHRQELMRX[SDVWHORQSDSHURQIRUH[ installation view, 50 Moons of Saturn, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli The sensitivity for a mise en scene that celebrates its own tic decomposition and an exaggeration. a deformation of physiog- deconsecration, connects Roccasalva’s method of construc- nomies that are hypertrophied or hypotrophied as the case may tion not to the medieval allegories and ephemeral baroque be. that look like a surgical derivation of mannerism. GLVSOD\VZKLFKFRQÀUPHGWKHSULQFLSDOVWKH\UHSUHVHQWHGEXW And what is a story that runs from the Byzantine icon to a logic of subversion that is the anthropological structure through the mannerism of the Catholic Reform if it is not an RI WKHFDUQLYDODQGZKLFKZHÀQGDJDLQLQWKHH[SUHVVLYH adventure of canons and corruption.doctrine and transgression? value of derision within the writing of authors such as Antonin Artaud. If we take the example of the many texts painted or drawn by Roccasalva. this discourse may be understood on a less obvious level with respect to that of his multimedia installations, in which all the elements are often placed in an Alessandro Rabottini is cheif curator of GAMeC Galleria d’Arte Moderna intense relationship with the painterly aspect of the work. The e Contemporanea di Bergamo. motif of the head is an iconographic constant throughout his repertory and brings to mind both the frontal Quality of Byzantine painting and the enigmas in the painting of Gino De Dominicis. even if it would be more opportune in this regard to cite the memory of Brancusi’s forms sellied in the painting of De Dominicis. But the integrity that characterises the approach to form that runs from Byzantine icons all the way to Giorgio De Chirico’s mannequins is. in this case, subject to a parodis- MAP/Issue 17/Spring 2009 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 5RVHQEHUJ.DUHQ´&KHHN\+LSVWHUVLQWKH+DOOVRI9LFWRULDQ%ULJDGLHUVµThe New York Times)HEUXDU\ $YLVLWRUH[DPLQHV&DUO$QGUH·V´3DVVSRUWµDWWKH$QGUHD5RVHQERRWKDWWKH$UW6KRZ 6X]DQQH'H&KLOOR7KH1HZ 7KHHYHQWQRZLQLWVWK\HDURIIHUVZRUNVGDWLQJIURPWKH WKFHQWXU\WRWKHSUHVHQW (YHQZLWKWKHVHFUHGHQWLDOVWKH$UW6KRZFRXOGQHYHUEHPLVWDNHQIRUWKH$UPRU\6KRZZKLFKQH[WPRQWKZLOOÀOO3LHU ZLWKGHDOHUVIURP/RQGRQ=XULFK%HLMLQJDQGHOVHZKHUH,QWKH3DUN$YHQXHIDLUVHFRQGDU\PDUNHW´FODVVLFFRQWHPSRUDU\µ ZRUNVGULYHPXFKRIWKHEXVLQHVVDOWKRXJKWKHVLQJOHDUWLVWVKRZVDQGWKHPDWLFH[KLELWVOHQGDGLJQLÀHGDLUWRWKH dealmaking. $ODUJHWURYHRIHDUO\-RKQ%DOGHVVDUL IURPWKHPLG V DW0DULDQ*RRGPDQLVDWUHDW/LNHZLVHWKHODWH/XFLR)RQWDQDVWKDW ÀOO6SHURQH:HVWZDWHU·VERRWK$SLHFHRISXQFWXUHGFRSSHUIURP)RQWDQD·V´1HZ $WWKHPRUHFRQWHPSRUDU\IDLUVQHZZRUNRIWHQDSSHDUVWRKDYHEHHQUXVKHGIURPWKHVWXGLREXW$P\6LOOPDQ·VFKURPDWLFDOO\ H[XEHUDQWSDLQWLQJVDW6LNNHPD-HQNLQVKDYHDQDSSHDOLQJIUHVKQHVV7KHDUPRU\VHWWLQJGRHVQRWGRPXFKIRU2ODIXU(OLDVVRQ ZKRVHWRXULQJUHWURVSHFWLYHFRPHVWRWKH0XVHXPRI0RGHUQ$UWDQG36LQ4XHHQVLQ$SULO$W%RQDNGDUKLVDWRPOLNH sculptures — composed of mirrored rings and intersecting discs — look more trinketlike than transcendent. 6FXOSWRUVIDUHEHWWHUDW$QGUHD5RVHQZLWKDVHQVXRXV5REHUW0RUULVIHOWSLHFHDQG'·$PHOLR7HUUDVZKHUHZRUNVE\&RUQHOLD 3DUNHU&KULVWLDQ+ROVWDGDQGRWKHUVVKDUHDFUDIW\PDJSLHDHVWKHWLF7KHFRQWLQXLQJSRSXODULW\RIFHUDPLFVLVVXJJHVWHGE\$Q GUHZ/RUG·VOXPSHQYHVVHOVDW%DUEDUD*ODGVWRQHDQG/\QGD%HQJOLV·VJOD]HVSODVKHGNQRWVDW&KHLP 5HDG 3DLQWLQJGRPLQDWHVDVDOZD\VEXWVHYHUDOSKRWRJUDSK\GHDOHUVYLHIRUDWWHQWLRQ7LQD%DUQH\·VFRORUIXOSKRWRJUDSKVRISHRSOH LQXSVFDOHVXUURXQGLQJVOLQHWKHUR\DOEOXHZDOOVRI-DQHW%RUGHQ·VERRWK$PRQJWKHPDUH´7KH7UXVWHHDQGWKH&XUDWRUµZKLFK VKRZVWZRGLVWLQJXLVKHGJHQWOHPHQLQDJDOOHU\RIWKH0HWURSROLWDQ0XVHXPRI$UW7KH'DYLG)UDQNHOJDOOHU\RI6DQ )UDQFLVFRKDVDVHOHFWLRQRISKRWRJUDSKVUHFHQWO\UHOHDVHGE\WKHHVWDWHRI5LFKDUG$YHGRQLQFOXGLQJKLVIDPRXVLPDJHVRI:DU KRO·VVXUJHU\VFDUUHGWRUVRDQGDVXEGXHG0DULO\Q0RQURH 7KRVHVHHNLQJDPRGHUQUDWKHUWKDQFRQWHPSRUDU\À[PLJKWHQMR\WKH&DOGHUVFXOSWXUHVDQGPRELOHVDW2·+DUD·VERRWKWKH3L FDVVRVWLOOOLIHDW)HLJHQRU0DUVGHQ+DUWOH\·VSRUWUDLWRIDPXVFXODUVXQEDWKHUDW%DEFRFN0LFKDHO:HUQHUKDVGHYRWHGDQHQWLUH ERRWKWRYLVFHUDOHDUWKWRQHSDLQWLQJVDQGVFXOSWXUHVE\WKH6FKRRORI3DULVPHPEHU-HDQ)DXWULHU 7KH1HZ The thrill of the secret chamber gets a sinister twist from Lisi 5DVNLQ·VFRPPDQGVWDWLRQLQWKH&RORQHO·V5RRPRIWKHDUPRU\ :LWKFRQWUROSDQHOVVXUYHLOODQFHPRQLWRUVDQGDUHGHPHUJHQF\ SKRQHFRQVWUXFWHGIURPSDSHUDQGSDVWHLW·VSRLQWHGO\RXWGDWHG FROGZDUFKLOG·VSOD\ ,QWKHPRVWDPELWLRXVLQVWDOODWLRQ0U5RFFDVDOYDZKRLV ,WDOLDQERUQDQGZRUNVLQ0DGULGKDVFUHDWHGDWDEOHDXYLYDQW LQWKHDUPRU\·VHOHJDQWO\DSSRLQWHG0DU\'LYHU5RRP7ZLQ EURWKHUVDQGWKHLUIDWKHUDOOGUHVVHGDVUHIHUHHVVWDQGDURXQGD VRFFHUEDOOVL]H´DUDQFLQRµ D6LFLOLDQ ULFHEDOO SODFHGDWRSDZDLVWKLJKVWDFNRISDSHU$FURVVWKH KDOODPXGG\ORRNLQJPRQRFKURPHSDLQWLQJKDVEHHQLQVHUWHG DPRQJWKHDUPRU\·VSRUWUDLWVRIXQLIRUPHGEULJDGLHUV 0U5RFFDVDOYD·VVWDWHGUHIHUHQFHV WR*LRUJLRQH-DFTXHV/DFDQ DQG)HOL[*RQ]DOHV7RUUHVDPRQJRWKHUV GRQ·WTXLWHDGGXS 6WLOOWKLVLVWKHVRUWRIQDWLRQDOO\DQGDUFKLWHFWXUDOO\FRQVFLRXV SURMHFWRQHPLJKWH[SHFWWRVHHLQD9HQLFHSDYLOLRQUDWKHUWKDQ on Park Avenue. 6RFFHUDQ\RQH"5HIHUHHVZLWKDULFHEDOOLQDWDEOHDXYLYDQWE\3LHWUR 5RFFDVDOYDLQWKH0DU\'LYHU5RRPDWWKH$UPRU\ 6X]DQQH'H&KLOOR7KH1HZ CHANCE FOR PAINTING PIETRO IS TO RECUPERATE ITS POWER ROCCASALVA OF SIMULACRUM. YOU WORK IN A PROGRESSION, WITH EACH WORK CONCEPTUALLY REFERENCING ANOTHER. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE INDEXICAL NATUR.E OF YOUR WORK? Granted that it’s not a rational scheme, the work is an automatic concatenation engendered by the paintings them- selves as the work site’s microchips. To some extent, the situations are created by the paintings and often generate. in turn. other paintings. Each situation automatically becomes a set that creates new images to be painted. In this DXWRPDWLVP,·PUHPRYHGDVDXWKRU WKHDUWLÀFHUDVDFRQVFLRXVLQGLYLGXDODOZD\VDUULYHVODWHU7KHSXUSRVHVWHPV from the result and not vice versa. ALL OF YOUR INSTALLATIONS ARE CENTERED AROUND, AND RELIANT ON A PAINTING. WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO PAINTING, AND HOW DO YOU SEE THE MEDIUM AS CHANGING IN A CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT? I believe that the only cbance for painting is to recuperate its power of simulacrum. The power that painting can KDYHLVWRHPERG\WKHDUWLÀFLDOLQWHOOLJHQFHEXWRQO\DVLQWHOOLJHQWDUWLÀFHRUVDLGRWKHUZLVHVLPXODFUXP DKDQGL- work animated by a force, able to generate a context. Painting cannot compete with the so-called logical communi- cation ofthe media. What remains in painting is the more immediate and “cruel” possibility of subduing and ravishing. YOU CREATE MISE-EN-SCENES, WHICH YOU REFER TO AS MSITUAZIONE D’OPERA (ART WORK’S SITUATION),” HOW DOES THE VIEWER FACTOR INTO YOUR WORK? A featute of this initial stage of my work is to let the work site open. The viewer is an intruder and only if he lets himself be ravished, can be enter this process. Something like those paintings of the 17th century in which the spectator-martyr -in the sense of witness- is portrayed as turned on. The oeuvre doesn’t allow any interaction with the viewer unless he is able to abandon himself and be subdued. No other modes of participation exist. YOU HAVE USED THE TERMS natura morta (STILL LIFE) AND rapimento (RAVISHMENT) TO DESCRIBE BOTH THE WORK AND THE PROCESS. CAN YOU ELABORATE? Regarding the “ravishment,” I can add that painting is a lens through which a retrospective gaze ravishes and devours the viewer. Looking at the place from which we are seen is a sensation that attracrs and coaxes us to the abandonment, beyond the pleasure principle. Concerning the term “natura morta”... it’s because it was born as parergon and then became ergon; it’s because it was called xenia; it’s because it is a harmonic composition of UHVWVRUUDWKHUDGHSRVLWLRQ LW·VEHFDXVHLWLVDERXTXHWRIPLVWDNHV LW·VEHFDXVHLW·VDUKHWRULFDUWLÀFHZLWKRXWD model or scope, other than the musicality and the vanitas; it’s because it’s a pastime; it’s because as a minor genre painting-if animated like a simulacrum-it can degenerate the grand manner genres. PHILOSOPHICAL REFERENCES ARE OFTEN TIED INTO YOUR WORK, WHICH FEATURES REPEATING ARCHETYPES. HOW DOES THE IDEA OF METAPHOR PLAY OUT IN THE WORK? ,·PLQWHUHVWHGLQWKHPXVLFDOH[FHVVRIODQJXDJHDQGLWVUKHWRULFÀJXUHV,W·VDOZD\VOLWHUDOO\´IXRUGLPHWDIRUDµ (out of metaphor). This is why all the metaphors are misleading. DOES THE TITLE OF YOUR PIECE, Jockey full of Bourbon, HAVE ANY RELATION TO THE TOM WAITS’ SONG OF THE SAME NAME? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OWL BEING DISGUISED AS A PARROT? Yes. the title, Jockey full of Bourbon, has a relation with Tom Waits’ song. Concerning the owl, it doesn’t have an H[DFWDQGXQLTXHPHDQLQJWKHRHXYUHVDUHOLNHPDVNVWKHLUKROORZÀ[HGQDWXUHKRVWVGLIIHUHQWJKRVWV,GRQ·W know what ghosts and how many ofthem have “inhabited” it. What I can tell you are some thoughts I had after I made it ... the warriors put the makeup on before encountering the death; the mix ofa philosopher and a VRSKLVW WKHWUXWKPDGHXSDVÀFWLRQ DQGQRWWKHÀFWLRQPDGHXSDVWUXWK WHICH ART1STS ARE YOU INTERESTED IN? I’m interested in artists’ obsessions; the same one that sometimes interests me. and that I cannot name. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE WORK FOR THIS SHOW? “I would prefer not to.” Born in 1970 In Modica, Italy. Pietro Roccasalva lives and works in Milan. Solo exhibitions include CCS Bard at Seventh Regiment Armory, New York; GAMeC. Bergamo; Art: Concept Paris: Johnen + Schottle, Cologne; Ex Tempio Metodista, Torino: Hoet Bekaert Gallery, Ghent; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice; Galleria Zero, Milan. Group exhibitions include P.S.l Contemporary Art Center, New York; Museion. Bolzano; Prague Biennale 3. Prague; MAXXI, Rome; Galleria d’Arte Moderna/Villa della Rose, Bologna; Fondazione Davide Halevim, Milan; Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como; Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice; Tirana Biennale 2, Tirana; and SMAK. Ghent. Philosophical references and complex metaphors make up the varied work of Pietro Roccasalva. Paintings drawings, and sculpture unite to create unique installations or “situations” that work in an indexical nature, each referencing a former work. A Jockey full of Bourbon II, 2006 detail B D’apres La Tempesta, 2006 C The Good Woman, 2005 E The Oval Portrait. A vrentiloquist at a Birthday D Truka, 2007 Party in October 1947, 2005 Detail F Untitled, 2006 H The Skeleton Key II, 2007 G Untitled, 2007 I Untitled, 2005