variuos, United States of America

sense out - sens aut...

language of museums

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005 ( Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould)

Sense Out aims to be a visual investigation of language. It is clear how, in every field, articulated and complex individual thought is converted into a language that is frequently susceptible to bad interpretation. Whilst this undesired effect at times is due to a weak expressive capacity or to a lack of lexical wealth, on other occasions it is the instrument of language itself that is found to be erroneous and inaccurate. The tendency of the new society to run an increasingly stressed and fast life leads to the rapid mutation of language, which we are witnessing every day on the web or on our mobile phones. Language still remains our only channel of communication within the community. We would like it to be precise, appropriate, unequivocal. Within the family, as at school, in the office, on the street, in museums it is not understood and is disregarded, undervalued.

Castello di Rivoli, Turin, sept. 2008 (Andrea Bruno, dopo Michelangelo Garove e Filippo Juvarra)

Inspired by my own poor attitude to communication and even more so by the myriad of times I have heard the complaints of onlookers, I have noticed how museums, the greatest fonts of knowledge, often prove to be incapable of performing their role as cultural intermediaries between the creators and the public. Whilst in a continuous attempt to render implicit messages in works of art intelligible, they end up acting solely as a container. In my work writing and signs form a new level on the photographs of museum spaces. The audience experiences this lack of intermediation with frustration and considers contemporary art as incomprehensible, unreachable, albeit packed with content. The prediction of a lack of comprehension is suspected, to the point of curiosity waning a priori and feeling entitled to give up. This difficult flow of the content of art towards the visitor is due, on the one hand, to the inappropriate language of the system of art and on the other, to the resigned attitude of an ever less stimulated audience.

Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern feb. 2006 (Renzo Piano)

The linguistic efforts of the container-museum remain difficult, hazy. Few onlookers abandon themselves to experiments of interpretation and the artists are pleased at this, but their effort determines a new inaccurate linguistic level, which rising in the halls of the museums forms an incomprehensible veil over the image. Photography is complemented by an element of clear linguistic provenance, still sealed within itself, present but indecipherable. Language, deprived of its role of election, assumes a decorative value and becomes an accessory. Sense Out / sens aut is a critique of decorum-language, of the polished-indecipherable language of many experts, guilty of making art even less accessible by the misuse of language.