Adelita Husni-Bey: Frangente/Breaker

Curated by Bruna Roccasalva and Vincenzo de Bellis
 

Museo del Novecento and Fondazione Furla present Libyan-Italian artist Adelita Husni-Bey, who for the third event of Furla Series #01 - Time after Time, Space after Space will stage Frangente/Breaker, a three-act performance that unfolds both inside and outside the museum galleries.

Power dynamics, human relationships, and education are themes central to the work of Adelita Husni-Bey, which ranges through different media and often draws on cross-disciplinary collaboration. Taking a participatory approach to performance, the artist organizes complex workshop situations that explore the relationship between the individual and collective spheres.

Frangente/Breaker is a performance in three acts that combines a site-specific project with a performative reinterpretation of a sound work from 2013 and a public action, brought together as a single reflection on authorship, on barriers, borders, and nationalism, and on the perception of otherness. 

The first act, Cementarmato (2018), is a performance developed for the occasion that brings visitors into interaction with several works from the museum’s permanent collection. The event then continues in the Sala Fontana with Sull’Esilio (2018) involving asylum seekers currently housed at the former barracks Montello in Milan, and concludes with the third and final act, Action for a Sandbag Brigade (2011), that takes place outside, in an action that moves into the public sphere.

Frangente/Breaker is informed in part by the essay “Reflections on Exile” (2002) in which Edward W. Said says that “between the nationalism and the ‘other’ is banishment—the outside, where those unwelcome were banished to be forgotten. It is the perilous territory of non-belonging.” Bearing a title with multiple meanings—a wave, and its length; a barrier, and a difficult juncture or risky circumstance—the performance is an exploration of the social and political dynamics governing our relationship with the “other,” an invitation to reflect on the concepts of nation, community, and displacement within the complex landscape of contemporary life.

Adelita Husni-Bey. Frangente/Breaker is the third event in Furla Series #01 - Time after Time, Space after Space, a performance-centered program that will present five events by five artists from different generations and backgrounds, to showcase a wide range of approaches to this form of expression. The series began in the fall of 2017 with events dedicated to Simone Forti and Alexandra Bachzetsis, and will include two more events featuring Paulina Olowska (March 6, 2018) and Christian Marclay (April 13-14, 2018).

For more info:
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