PARTY ALONE | GABRIELLA SICILIANO

Abandoned rooms, with peeling walls and dust in the corners, dark corridors and empty warehouses are the spaces chosen by Gabriella Siciliano for the site specific installation Party Alone (2020). These places are part of the family warehouse which, after the retirement of the artist’s father, was definitively closed, and was therefore in a state of abandonment at the time of the intervention. Siciliano takes possession of the place for two months and living in close contact with its walls and windows, its silence and suspended atmospheres due to its inactivity, than she creates the Party Alone project which is defined as an environmental installation and activation through a series of performances open to the public. Each room takes on its own particular theme and a different aesthetic result: the common link between all the rooms in the warehouse is the celebration that characterizes the choice of objects and materials.

The rooms that previously housed merchandise and served as workplaces are now decorated by the artist with a series of colorful and gaudy objects and decorations: helium balloons that completely cover the ceiling of an office, the classic cone-shaped hats birthday parties become the rainbow carpet of another room, a little further on the floor is painted with a myriad of confetti and then enters a jungle of colored flags to form an intricate labyrinth of lianas. Gabriella Siciliano, disguising the workplace into a recreational place, proposes to play and celebrate the change and the conclusion of a cycle of activities. With Party Alone the artist rediscovers cheerfulness understood as a method for dealing with the transience of every human situation: in a path of acceptance of the deterioration and the conclusion of a state of affairs, the installation is enriched with a series of performances open to the public in which sing, dance and a DJ set in which all guests are invited to celebrate.

The activation done by Siciliano leads to including the game as a meeting place between the different eras: Party Alone in fact speaks of the new generation and the comparison with the great promises of the 70’s that are starting to creak. However, the uncertain future is not welcomed with fear or anger, rather the spirit promoted by the artist is that of letting go of play and light-heartedness as a liberating act and perhaps as a wish for new ways of being together. Melancholy is not denied or hidden, but in the encounter with the exaltation of the game, it is directed towards a shift of values that seeks, precisely, to get rid of some dust and rediscover the charm of the party time, of being together and of life understood as a continuous succession of events and emotions.

Gabriella Siciliano
Party Alone, 2020
Installation view, Ex Magazzini Parco San Paolo, Napoli IT © courtesy: the artist

22/04/2023

PARTY ALONE | GABRIELLA SICILIANO

condividi su