ELEANOR ANTIN | ARIA DEAN | JIMMIE DURHAM | HAMISHI FARAH | EMILIO PRINI
curated by ANDREA BELLINI

The satyr is alone. The satyr does not belong to any nation, to any association, to any trade union, to any movement. The satyr is a creature of the woods: he has a black eye, a clown nose, a wooden body like Pinocchio. You will never see him participating in a large gathering, a television programme, a debate on social media. The satyr does not sign petitions, does not play golf and avoids conferences and conventions. The satyr is beautiful and sensual, aggressive and lascivious. The satyr has no objective other than to show that the King is naked, and to achieve this he is willing to do anything, even lie. The satyr loves to play, because through play he makes fun of the world, desecrates the powerful and humiliates moralists. Instead of cold minimalism, the satyr prefers the idea of a marvelous standard, and in the concept of the series he sees only the eternal return of eternal violence, the melancholic perpetuation of an endless loop. The satyr is comic, but he does not do comedy: the satyr does not entertain the audience, he is not funny, he is not sociable, he is not conciliatory. The satyr is the exact opposite of the comedian: the satyr is antisocial, the satyr is pure poison. As Carmelo Bene used to say, “to make of one’s misfortune a hilarious and deformed caricature, this is the comic that marries the sublime.”
(quot. Andrea Bellini, 2021)