Still Blue: "January Blues" at Frutta

Maria Vittoria di Sabatino
16 feb 2016
Tempo di lettura: 2 min

Play"Il cielo in una Stanza" (song in the exhibition EN subtitles)

before reading the review.

In case you did not know, the so-called ‘January blues’ is the feeling one enters once Christmas holidays are over and spring break is yet far off. The weather is cold, it rains most of the time, and streets are too crowded with sales-hunters to enjoy window-shopping. Watching lousy movies and drinking vanilla tea are agreed to be a fair cure for this condition. However, a way smarter remedy to challenge this seasonal ennui might be visiting the show currently on view at Frutta gallery (Rome): "January Blues," an exhibition punning on the color blue in relation to the post-holidays feeling.

Quando sei qui con me, questa stanza

non ha più pareti ma alberi, alberi infiniti…

Catherine Biocca, OCEAN VIEW RELOADED, 2015, Video Animation, PVC Print and Sound Installation, 184 × 152 × 13,5 cm. Courtesy of Frutta. Photo by © Roberto Apa.

Works by Catherine Biocca, Gabriele De Santis, Lauren Gault, Ditte Gantriis, Neal Jones, Lindsay Lawson, Andrea Polichetti, Gizela Mickiewicz, and Honza Zamojski were commissioned and gathered together at Frutta both to exalt and mock our seemingly-endless misery.

…quando tu sei vicino a me, questo soffitto viola

non esiste più, io vedo il cielo sopra noi che…

JanuaryBlues. InstallationView. Courtesy of Frutta. Photo by © Roberto Apa

Once in the gallery, the first room appears overwhelmingly white and bright with a few blue touches. Characterizing the scene, Lindsay Lawson’s Sad Lamp gives the viewer a buzz, standing as a counterfeit to the sunlight. In the same room, Lauren Gault’s water puddle is given sound by the juxtaposition with Catherine Biocca’s video installation, OCEAN VIEW RELOADED. Still in the first room and moving on to the second, the viewer is accompanied by a small-scaled set of real-life tragedies, i.e. Putting some make up on and staying home; Watching tv, saving money; Staying out and freezing; Going angry, online banking. These are some of the works by young Roman artist Andrea Polichetti, who attempted to portray recurrent wintery moods and situations using pebbles and carbon drawing.

…restiamo qui abbandonati come se

non ci fosse più niente, più niente al mondo…

Andrea Polichetti, Rehab for quitting smoking, 2016, Carbon Drawing, Peebles, Oil Pastels, Dimensions Variable. Courtesy of Frutta. Photo by © Roberto Apa

Overcoming the weatherly innuendo, the second room is dominated by the heavy-light contrast. Beginning with a dispute between Honza Zamojski’s Concrete Conflict and Gizela Mickiewicz’s Total of all distractions, the atmosphere is relieved by the sound of Mina’s voice singing a famous Italian nostalgic song - “Il cielo in una stanza” - coming from Gabriele De Santis’s umbrellas installation. Last but not least, Ditte Gantriis’s site-specific project called Vino Rosso brings the viewer into a dichromatic warmness competing with the whole January blues condition.