Davide Bertocchi, Limo, 2003; Ordum e Progresso, 2004; Limo,
customized by Kolkoz, 2005
Two stretch-limos wind their way down a vertiginous white spiral. One is
tastefully white, whilst the other is tastefully souped up into a Eurotrash
expression of look-at-me wealth. This isn’t a Vegas car park, but the
Guggenheim in New York. And the limo has the exact radial curvature
that allows it to fit snugly within the gallery’s eccentric composition.
Critically dismissed as impossible to show paintings in, the Guggenheim
NY is now the ultimate locus for site-specific artists. Here Bertocchi’s
weird Limo makes perfect sense, and therefore becomes unweird. In
Ordum e Progresso, the ominous blue sphere from the Brazilian flag
rolls endlessly around Niemeyer’s ufo-like Niteroi Museum in Rio. Its
movement is scripted by the architecture. Bertocchi’s seris of ‘Utopic’
speculations reveal the eccentric gallery as co-author, mother and
midwife, all in one. |
