VIN VIN Gallery curated by Francesco Tenaglia
„Eureka!“

Francesco Tenaglia is a critic and a curator. Artistic Director of Sgomento Zurigo exhibition space in Zürich, he is currently serving as part of the curatorial and research team at Museion (Bolzano) and he is professor of Art Theory and Criticism at Nuova Accademia d’Arte (NABA) in Milan. He has recently curatedUrfaust (2021) at Tarsia, Naples; Nothing but Time (2021) at Goswell Road, Parigi; Cosmopolitan Haze (2020) at Bungalow-Chertlüdde, Berlino; 1550 San Remo Drive at Hot Wheels Athens; Il Ghirigoro (2019), at Pio Pico, Los Angeles. His writings have appeared on Il Foglio Arte, Art Agenda, Art Review, Artforum, Flash Art among others. He is on the board of the Almanac contemporary art project in London and Turin.

eureka!

 

The French philosopher Henri Bergson, in a collection of essays published at the beginning of the last century, identifies the essential requirements of comedy: it is inextricably linked to the human being; it needs a momentary distancing from the source of hilarity; and it is a phenomenon that cannot ignore sociality. Even when one laughs in solitude, one laughs in community. Comedy occurs, according to Bergson, when we are faced with behaviors that signal automatism, distraction, or insouciance. Imitations amuse when they reflect mechanical aspects of the imitated, which is then reborn as a double camouflage, like a puppet. The comedic moment, therefore, is a moment of rupture that highlights the mechanical taking over some possibilities of life. eureka! takes its cue from these reflections, reflecting procedures of comedy via works that manifest a disjunction with respect to the literal appearance that solidifies the personal or sociopolitical concerns that informed them. Similarly, the exhibition looks at comedy tactics—false clues, double entendre, hyperbole, circularity, puns, refrains—building a path that articulates different artistic practices in a narrative whose ultimate goal is not laughter. Like a story that mimics a frozen joke, but which—programmatically—doesn’t seek a release effect.

 

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