Emilio Isgrò. La pelle scorticata

M77 is pleased to present La pelle scorticata, a theatrical action by and with Emilio Isgrò, created in the spaces of the gallery on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 October. From Thursday 6 October until Saturday 3 December 2016, a video recording the work will allow visitors to the gallery to see it again in its entirety.

In this work, Emilio Isgrò is both author and actor, putting himself in the shoes and texts of Curzio Malaparte in the years in which the cursed Tuscan was confined to Lipari by the fascist regime. The project presents itself as a stage intervention that Isgrò makes on one of the most controversial writers of the Italian twentieth century, carrying out a sort of erasure of words, which is part of the so-called Trilogy of the Censored, the cycle of works that the artist dedicated to three uncomfortable intellectuals, brilliant and contested, loved and hated: Giovanni Testori, Pico della Mirandola and Curzio Malaparte.

During the entire monologue of La pelle scorticata, Sicily is confused with Tuscany, the Italian language overlaps with Sicilian and the artist erases his own identity and that of the writer, confusing roles, times and places. A swarm of bees carried by the wind enters the void of the scene and Isgrò/Malaparte fantasizes about being Ulysses at the court of Aeolus, the mythical king of the winds who gives him his daughter in marriage. In his words there is the expectation and hope of a return home.

The theatrical action, proposed exclusively by M77, ideally completes the impressive Milanese exhibition dedicated to Emilio Isgrò in the rooms of Palazzo Reale, the Gallerie d’Italia and the Casa del Manzoni. It is also linked to the project Cursed Tuscans, Blessed Italians, cancellation in three times, created by the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art, the Palazzo Pretorio Museum and the Metastasio Stabile Theater of Tuscany.

DATE

06/10/2016 -
03/12/2016