(Italy)

Self portrait, 2012
00:04:06, VGA, 16:09
MP4, Color, Stereo

Building your own body—or rather, challenging it through restrictions, rules, and discipline—and through this training, addressing the ever-problematic construction of self-image: this is the thread that unites Francesca Arri’s works.

Her approach begins with deep contact with her own flesh, a desire to overcome limits and stagnation, transforming the threshold into a space of learning and analysis, seeking a common synergy through macabre irony.

Dorian Gray, in Oscar Wilde’s tale, imprisons his shame within his portrait to protect himself from the transience of beauty.

In contrast, Francesca Arri outlines her own portrait in a video performance where she mocks her image in the mirror, pointing at it in a gesture that is both a warning and a challenge—to herself and to others.

Her laughter draws us in, then unsettles and provokes. Does the performer expose her own shame, or ours?

Is she laughing at herself or at her viewers?

The grotesque image of our times is reflected in the lens of a video camera.