Untitled 2010

UNTITLED 2010-2020

Performance: Artissima, Tourin, 2010

Video: 2010 – 2020 Italy, colours, 7’30” ed. 3+2 ap, Video HD, PAL

series of Photographs from the performance

Untitled (2010-2020) marks another chapter in the research LIUBA has dedicated to the social and relational dynamics underlying the art-world. Following her typical working pattern, consisting in intruding herself in real life contexts with a surprise-effect, LIUBA attended the opening of Artissima Art Fair with a white dress, long loose hair and bare feet – offering hugs to the public of professionals, curious and spectators roaming Turin’s Lingotto.

Their reactions have been recorded by a video operator and a photographer who secretly kept track of the momentary intimacy created between the artist and those who accepted her invitation to be held, even if only for a few moments.

“The idea of the work began with feeling the discomfort concerning the often cold relations we have with others in our society, especially in the art world.

People often meet at art exhibitions or at art fairs for business, for convenience, for new contacts or for working together but the dynamics of these meetings are almost always cold, impersonal, rushed and stressed. We are losing the ability to establish ‘warm’ and affective relationships with the others.

For this reason, I imagined an action where the focus of the performance is human contact, the embracing of one body with another body”. (LIUBA)

With this simple and direct action, LIUBA aims to bring attention to the human and emotional value of relationships, often set aside in the art-world in favour of business-like exchange, which frame people in well-defined and stereotyped roles (artist / spectator / gallery owner / buyer).

The embrace-gesture therefore becomes the tool to carry out a criticism of the system in which the artist herself moves.

In 2020, after the COVID-19 emergency forced people in isolation into their own home and into social distancing, with no other contacts than the ones mediated by technology, the action of embracing a stranger looks like a remote reality, almost impossible to resume as a social practice. Aware that in the era of global pandemic these images take on further meaning, LIUBA decided to edit the video of this performance piece during the 2020 quarantine and finished it while still in isolation.

The video Untitled (2010 – 2020) is the result of a montage of frames and photographs which moves on the notes of Ciajkovskij’s Waltz of the Flowers, a tribute to the metaphorical dance steps made with all the people the artist have met during her action.

Untitled 2010-2020, photos from the performance, variable size

“LIUBA, visual artist and performance artist known internationally, works with video, photo and urban interactive performance.

The unpredictability of human reactions to an unexpected and unusual act, like a hug from a stranger, makes the performance a kind of meta-language between social studies and artistic gesture. The performance touches some taboos and phobias endemic in our society which has now basically removed spontaneity and physicality from normal human relationships.

For Artissima 2010 LIUBA decided to create this new performance based on the theme of the embrace and involved directly the public visiting the exhibition. The artist walks through the corridors of the event dressed in white, barefoot, unexpectedly embracing people chosen at random. The hug may be more or less physical, long, affectionate, tender, depending on the sensitivity of those with whom it interacts.

The idea was born from the artist’s disappointment in human relations within the art world and in the coldness of the relationship with the people met in various contexts. “We often meet people for projects, business, convenience, duty .. but the dynamics of meetings are almost always cold, impersonal, rushed and stressed. We are losing the ability to establish relationships ‘hot’ with others, affective, starting a dialogue with the individuality and personality of each one.”

Olivia Spatola

“Often, at an important Art Fair, people meet, talk, exchange opinions, make business … without ever truly meeting. It seems to me that our society is losing physicality and emotions, and that the relationship with the others is getting more mental or utilitarian, or even virtual, as with email, chat, social networking, and sms. Nevertheless, I am interested in the human side of people and in the physicality of life.” (LIUBA 2010)

Today, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, it seems incredibly absurd and strange to seeing people so close to each other, without a distance, hugging with the intensity of all their bodies. It’s so wierd now, but it’s so wierd that it is wierd. It’s like we can’t imagine the day when we will start again to hug people freely and nearly. This video reminds us a direction and a hope. (LIUBA 2020)

UNTITLED 2010 - 2020

UNTITLED 2010-2020

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