Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze.
September 2016
Camera Chiara was a performance in 2016 in one of the Uffizi Galleries. It began with a chain reaction of fifteen performers, divided into three roups, beginning with a gesture.
Each performer had an object that signified a historic memory of the modus operandi of the artistic process that are passed down from generation to generation through time and space.
The Michelangelo, Leonardo and Cimabue gallery were all occupied at the same time by the performers who related to the works of art, measuring the obstacles, flirting with the art work, standing on top of Vasari books.
The performers carried out these actions at different times in the different galleries, giving the visitors to the galleries a sense of déjà vu as they moved from one gallery to the next, where they those of them who were paying attention noticed the same gestures that they had witnessed in the previous gallery.
The public who had no idea of what was about to happen were left disorientated by this micro action related to the art work, in repeated format. The destabilised spectator was searching for clues to connect the present artistic act to the one they just experienced.
A work of art is not just an object on show but produces a collection of reminiscences in space and time, while the viewer continually changes perception, despite the apparently unchanging work of art.
All these things occur while the viewer observes the work of art, although they are not recorded by art historians. Yet they can certainly contribute somthing both to artists and to art historians.
