Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano’s single channel video Performance Compositions for Sculpture (8), 2014; Courtesy the artists and Anna Schwartz Sydney
Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano have garnered a reputation for their videos that explore the process of performance, documentation and body as a drawn gesture.
This new suite of work is no exception; it is elegantly simple, yet erudite and probing in its exploration of material, movement and mood.
What strikes one most entering the vast cavernous space of Anna Schwartz’s Sydney gallery is the ability of these video works to hold their own within the scale of the room, despite their relative modest monitor dimensions and singular subject.
This is perhaps the intuitive read that the Mangano’s have – not only of space but of an object’s ability to command space. It goes beyond choreography. It is a complete and sympathetic connection between body, sound, object and audience.
Installation view at Anna Schwartz Sydney.
What is delightful about this show is its simplicity. I can’t say it enough.
The artists don’t opt for the grandiose statement – fresh from their stay in New York City as residents under the Australia Council studio program – rather they return with a simple expression of that complex place – objects collected “off the pavement” along daily walks, a kind of urban detritus that becomes magical – musical – in their hands.
‘Finding themselves without a history in that place, the artists worked to find the essence of each object and endow meaning to these almost totemic things,’ explained a gallery statement.
Not only were the Manganos establishing a connection with the city, but there was an connection with performance-based land works such as those of Hamish Fulton and Richard Long for example. While their work is very different – the Manganos’ new work suggested to be more in sync with the legacies of Russian Constructivist art and compositions fresh on the mind from their inclusion in the 2013 Moscow Biennale enroute to New York – durational performance remains the meter of these new videos. This has been amplified by the sound of objects – falling rods on concrete like the metronome beats falling in and out of sync with the sister’s movements.
It is obvious, then, the title of this exhibition – Of Objects or Sound.
‘The moving image allows them to imply the drawn line in different ways too, effectively drawing with their bodies or with props such as fabric, chairs or window shutters’, wrote QAGOMA of their work.
Performance Compositions for Sculpture (6), 2014; Courtesy the artists and Anna Schwartz Sydney
As part of their travels the artists attended Performa, the international festival of live art, making a conscious connection with performed works and cementing their intention to work beyond the video frame, as they told ArtsHub.
While that points to what we might expect in the future from this talented duo; what of this show, now? Objects, in general, talk about a physicality, so then how was that transpired in the space to the audience?
Essentially, the exhibition is rooted in two series that “face off” in conversation across opposing walls. On one four large single-channel projections: Standing Piece for Forms, Standing Piece for Sound, Walking Piece for Forms, and Imagining structures (all 2014) show the artists engaged in a kind of improvised choreography dance with material – at time a singular expression and others in tandem. Large than life you stand back from the staged event – walking its length in observation.
The second is a more intimate suite of nine video studies on monitors – surprising small by today’s standards – but one well picked. The body is largely removed – the focus honed on the object set against blackness, its weight, balance, sound, energy. In the same way these piece draw you in – it is a more singular engagement – bouncing micro macro across the room.
Installation view Anna Schwartz Sydney, June 2014
The play with the genre of ‘the record’ – documenting an object, but also elevating it beyond mere record – is another compelling study that the Mangano’s seeming crack open and examine in this exhibition.
I have seen many works over the years, now, by Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano and while that can breed a kind of complacency with familiarity, I remain surprised by the freshness in their work, and their ability to distil their subject to the most eloquent and poignant of expressions.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano: Of Objects or Sound
Anna Schwartz Sydney
31 May – 19 July
