Damien hirst, really not doing well with sales
I'm an Italian artist living in Shanghai, China. I'm posting extracts from my artwork and my research, plus things I find interesting.
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Girolamo Marri
Girolamo Marri
Douglas Coupland’s Pessimistic Guide to the Next 10 Years
1) It’s going to get worse
2) The future isn’t going to feel futuristic
3) The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now
4)Move to Vancouver, San Diego, Shannon or Liverpool
5) You’ll spend a lot of your time feeling like a dog leashed…
(Source: technoccult.net)
This is a picture of my posse and myself a few years back.
We followed no rules.
If it’s hard for you to believe, for we were living under a dictatorship, you should learn about the grey, which is where all of the far too many rules melt and fade, and, if you wear no shoes, your toes are tickled by the mud and dust of freedom. Oh yes, freedom, the one you think lives in deep fried potatoes and politically correct liberal contempt; freedom in and out of pores as you are beaten senseless; freedom of wearing no teeth and being told exactly what you can and cannot do and you will not and will do.
We used to roam the streets and abuse the elderly with toothpicks and long nails on our little fingers. We used to find bargains and innocently ask “how much is your salary?” like “how much is that celery?” We shouted at women but only on the phone and never for a reason. We hugged each other and pinched are bottoms that were flaccid skin on bones and skin while giggling and sneering “faggots” and still we were pretty damn happy not understanding, until we were told we really had to, so we decided we’d better not to.
My posse and myself were real brave men except when it would come to face problems, then we’d be quite happy sitting and smoking and playing games and let it all be sweated away with garlic; do you sweat garlic or do you sweat dairy? Milk makes garlic much sweeter and more delicate, but it’s wasted in the process. Garlic helps your blood pressure, and we all have prety happy glutinous blood now
My posse was never wasted, it just left on a bicycle and went to live around the corner.
Opinions is an ongoing series, at present comprising of two works, which investigates the dynamics of cultural exchange in a supposedly globalized scenario.
Our interest in other countries’ cultures most often follows on from our interest in their economies. And that latter interest increases according to the degree to which we believe that economy might influence our own, and consequently our own quality of life. Fear of succumbing to what is remote encourages us to bond with it, to make it an ally. Repelled by and fearful of other cultures (for this is what we often are, despite our politically correct appearances), we need to reassure ourselves by feeling that we are on some level taking part in this dance.
All of the above mostly happens without us being consciously aware of it. it is just natural dialectics and it can at times develop into positive, even harmonious, integration. It is, nonetheless, a rather unhealthy process which reveals certain human characteristics that I believe to be innate and unpleasantly fascinating – such as cowardice, hypocrisy and indifference, to name a few.
The majority of these exchanges grown out of submissive fear, just as much as those born out of resentment and the will to show a re-gained status, are not driven by any profound interest or genuine curiosity, and no real understanding of “the other” is to be gained from them.
In this dubious trading of knowledge, the media who act as middlemen foment as much as they can the concealed drives animating their audience, often polluting with superficial and biased interventions the very exchanges they are supposed to facilitate. It could be argued that in many cases they act under pressure from higher powers, but I believe they often just follow their professional instinct, polished over the decades, to deliver to their audience exactly and only what it morbidly expects and wants.
In “Opinions” I try to offer a slightly cleaner form of communication, in which the use of a less standardized language calls for the viewer to have a more active role. At the same time I expose some of the mechanics of media manipulation, by means of a delicately humorous parody.
In all of the interviews – conducted with passers-by on the streets – no question is asked and no answer is given, so to steer clear of all barriers of language and to lose nothing in translation. The silence is awkward for the viewer as it is for the interviewed person and for myself, and this awkwardness unites us. I also play with the rhythm and composition of the images, deliberately ignoring the acquired rules of television journalism, letting the camera embrace a large space for a long time, and asking to the eyes and ears, who need not to bother with linguistic content, to move around and focus on what they prefer, on simple and yet revealing details such as the expressions on people’s faces, their gestures and nervous twitches, their clothes, the sparse sounds of nature struggling in the acoustic pollution of the city streets, and the daily, unaffected life in the background.
It is an attempt to summon a more genuine interest from the viewer, towards facets generally neglected or distorted as information travels in our delusional hyper-connected world
(Source: girolamomarri.com)
The Aporeticus: Ways Not to Write
I am a terrible descriptive writer in part because I am not perceptive about the world visually; in addition to being self-absorbed and inattentive, I have never acquired several important vocabularies which help one take note of what one sees. Like many men, I suppose, I’ve neglected color, and…
Girolamo Marri
Nulla e’ piu’ tuo Nothing is yours anymore
Wood, iron, video +sound
300x60x60 cm
