LOSING THE FORM IN DARKNESS | 2022
video / 11’52”, colors, no sound
Inspired by David Wojnarowicz’s renowned Rimbaud in New York (1978-’79), Losing the Form in Darkness is a video shot entirely in a domestic context, inside Savorani’s own home studio.
The work was conceived in response to the invitation of Nobody’s Business (a Milan-based collective) to occupy and curate for an entire day the space of Il Colorificio and the functioning sauna (open to the public) temporarily installed inside.
In the video, we follow the creation of a mask made from a portrait of Wonjarowicz and finally inhabited by the artist.
If in the famous series of photographs taken by Wojnarowicz, Rimbaud’s face haunted different situations of public and semi-private life in a particular historical moment in American history – and in NYC in particular – between the Stonewall riots and the AIDS crisis, in Savorani’s video Wojnarowicz’s mask remains suspended and trapped within the domestic walls, a clear reference to the isolation imposed by the lockdown and the consequent undermining of social and relational dynamics.
This is how the action of ((un)masking brings us back to the sauna as a space of temporary liberation and expression of one’s sexuality before the devastating impact of AIDS.
During the presentation at Il Colorificio, two sound elements were inserted into the looped projection of the video, on the one hand, the reading of excerpts from David Wojnarowicz’s Close to the Knives while on the other hand, the environment is pervaded by the All These Too I, I Love a track by composer William Basinski.
