That of decapitated is first and foremost an existential condition, quoting Nicole Aubert:
"incessant affairs, with one urgency immediately following another, become the guarantee of a fullness of life [...] all too often, action is nothing more than an escape from one's Self, a remedy for anguish that grips us.(1)"
In Decapitato, the root of anguish -the head- is removed, transfiguring the Man described by Aubert, to make him take on the impersonal appearance of a commercial mannequin: a paradigm of the aesthetics of image and the volatile identities of fashion; the personification of the Man/consumer -Homo Consumens(2)- in constant search of his own Self.
Thus, the aseptic and plasticised body of mannequin makes contemporary nomadism its own and, escaping the anguish of being what it is, seeks a different identity that changes in relation to the context and the proxemics of objects, which can make it, for example, the body of one of Art History great decapitated.
In this sense, the identities that Decapitato can take on are as many as meanings that the mannequin can assume in relation to its surroundings.
Decapitato is the first work in the Esecuzioni series; Decapitato can also named Opera Nomade 01.
Some of its possible collocations:
- David with the head of Goliath, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
- Perseus with the Head of Medusa, Canova, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- Shield with the Head of Medusa, Caravaggio, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Notes:
(1) - Nicole Aubert, Le culture de l’urgence. La sociètè malade du temps, Paris, Flammarion, 2003.
(2) - Zygmunt Bauman, Homo consumens. Lo sciame inquieto dei consumatori e la miseria degli esclusi, Erickson Editore, 2007.
