Invernomuto
VERNASCACADABRA
Friday 13, Saturday 14, Sunday 15 May 2022
from 11 AM to 8 PM on the hour
Hall 15 loudspeaker system
commissioned, developed and curated by Xing
produced by Arte Fiera
The ocarina is a wind instrument traditionally made of terracotta. Its name derives from its shape, which resembles a small, headless goose (“oca” in Italian). It is claimed that the instrument was invented by Giuseppe Donati, an artisan in the small town of Budrio, near Bologna, around the mid-19th century, and then it spread to many geographic areas (Austria and especially in South Tyrol, but also in Korea, Japan, Peru, and Hungary). Aside from its use in traditional and folk music, the ocarina appears in some famous soundtracks by Ennio Morricone, in compositions by György Ligeti, in Capitan Harlock (a 1970s Japanese anime series), in music by Duran Duran, and in the seminal videogame The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, in which it serves as a time and teleportation machine.
VERNASCACADABRA, Invernomuto’s sound performance for Oplà 2022, takes place through the fair’s loudspeaker system. It consists in a series of works for ocarina – composed, played, and post-produced by Invernomuto – announced and broadcasted on a regular basis during the opening hours of the art fair.
It is part of an artistic journey through the history of music routes that Invernomuto has been carrying out for years, starting from the sound and the imaginaries that it generates. Specifically, the work runs parallel to Black Med, a sound research project on the Mediterranean that Invernomuto started in 2018 (available for online consultation on the platform blackmed.invernomuto.info).
Invernomuto is the name of the artistic personality created in 2003 by Simone Bertuzzi (Piacenza, 1983) and Simone Trabucchi (Piacenza 1982. They work and live in Milan). Invernomuto is the author of a series of research projects structured in time and space, from which cycles of interconnected works derive. On a common theoretical basis, Invernomuto tends to think in an open and rhizomatic manner, developing different outputs that take the form of moving images, sounds, performative actions and publishing projects, within the framework of a practice defined by the use – as diffuse as it is precise – of different media. Reality is observed according to documentaristic principles and interests, but for the purpose of creating an imaginative and almost abstract representation, which offers wide margins for reflection and critical interrogation.
In particular, Invernomuto investigates subcultural universes, moving through different practices, in which the vernacular language is one way of approaching and appreciating oral cultures and contemporary mythologies, observed with a gaze that aspires to be cross-fertilised and regenerated by it. The declared inauthenticity of some of the materials used plays a fundamental role in this process, which underlines not only the real but also the fictitious and distorted nature of the realities that Invernomuto explores. Both artists also develop individual lines of research, with the musical projects Palm Wine and STILL.
The year 2021 includes participation in the Liverpool Biennial 2021, 58th October Salon-Belgrade Biennial 2021, Pompeii Commitment, Pompei, and Live Arts Week X Bologna. Solo exhibitions include: The Green Parrot, Barcelona (2021); Auto Italia, London (2020); Galleria Nazionale, Rome (2019); NN Contemporary Art, Northampton (2019); Pinksummer, Genoa (2019); Artspeak, Vancouver (2015); Marsèlleria, Milan and the ar/ge kunst, Bolzano (both 2014). Their work has also been exhibited at the 58th Venice Biennale; Tate, London; Manifesta 12, Palermo; Villa Medici, Rome; Alserkal Avenue, Dubai; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Nuit Blanche 2017; Paris, Museion, Bolzano; Kunstverein München, Munich; Bozar, Brussels; FAR°, Nyon; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Bétonsalon, Paris; Italian Cultural Institute. Addis Ababa; American Academy in Rome, Rome; PAC, Milan; Vleeshal, Middelburg; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Netmage 07/09, Bologna; Premio Furla, Bologna; No Fun Fest 2009, New York; Biennale Architettura 11, Venice. Invernomuto is represented by Pinksummer, Genova.
