FADE IN THE PAST. CUT!
12.04.- 02.06.2013
Kunst Meran im Haus der Sparkasse
curated by Sabine Gamper
www.kunstmeranoarte.org

In her solo exhibition at Merano arte, Sissa Micheli will present an array of new works including a number of series that have been made particularly for this exhibition. Under the title "FADE IN THE PAST. CUT!", the artist deals with the possibilities of photography as a narrative medium as compared to the cinematic media of movie theaters and television. Based on a reflection of the media, Sissa Micheli shows us in many ways where photographs and movie images touch; that is exactly where she experimentalizes, continuously investigating the basic conditions of the different genres and sometimes crossing their borders, as the title implies. Two large-scale black and white photographs—potential movie locations—form the pivotal point of the exhibition. On the opposite wall, we read in glittering stones "SCENARIO FOR A POSSIBLE FILMING LOCATION" and are reminded of the decadent glamour of Hollywood. The viewer has now long arrived in a fictitious story that reveals itself through images of movies and films he once saw, as if in a world of memories. A series of wooden boxes with stage directions, "POSSIBLE CAMERA DIRECTIONS" (2013) – a blend of technical instructions and narrative elements – add further links to the bits of imagination. They alternate with photographs of actresses' wigs – "IN THE SPOTLIGHT: THE ACTRESSES' WIGS" (2013). At another point of the exhibition, there is an installation with reflector umbrellas, entitled "THE MOVING MOTION PICTURE STUDIO" (2013). A series of elements and stage props accompany us through the exhibition, leading to another highlight: a large series of 17 photographic works entitled "YESTERDAY'S TOMORROWS" (2012/2013) that were taken in a villa from the thirties in Bruneck before it was torn down. The real story of the house became the starting point for the artistic research that mingles the history of the place with the memories of its inhabitants and the fantasy and imagination of the artist. The work that has resulted combines a documentary part with an artistic part. It was shot with two different cameras that represent the fictitious and the real approach: an analogous Mamya with which Micheli took the above black and white pictures in the style of a documentary, and a digital camera with analogous Hasselblad lenses, a 'hybrid' between analogous and digital technology with which the staged, artistic part of the project was made.

By the way, staging a core element of Sissa Micheli's artistic work. In this project, she suspends objects and people for a photographic moment, she makes them fly or dangle, thus 'carrying them away' from their usual positions. Sissa Micheli often takes photographs of herself, as do many artists who have been employing their own body to explore art since the sixties and seventies. In her double role as a creative subject and a passive object, Micheli becomes the active creator of images of femininity. At the same time, she joins the tradition of tableau photography by creating visual narrations on the basis of staged situations, and every individual picture becomes a symbol of a psychological condition on account of the composition, illumination and choreography of the persons and objects. The specific arrangement of figures and stage properties triggers our cultural ability to remember important moments in stories through other images that we see. Tableau photography is rooted in pre-photographic eras, in 18th and 19th century paintings. With Sissa Micheli, however, we also encounter a wealth of references to the visual history of movie theaters and television.