{"id":11242,"date":"2020-08-18T17:05:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T15:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spazioc21.com\/br1-golden-dark-age\/br1-golden-dark-age-presentation\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T14:37:12","slug":"presentation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.spazioc21.com\/en\/br1-golden-dark-age\/presentation\/","title":{"rendered":"BR1 GOLDEN DARK AGE – presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” el_class=”riga”][vc_column width=”1\/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”cs-9″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”85px”][vc_column_text]\/ PRESENTATION<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Golden Dark Age @ SpazioC21<\/h2>\n

Press Release[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”centro2″]The exhibition Golden Dark Age by BR1 opened in the context of Fotografia Europea in April 2018.
\nThe presentation, held within Palazzo Brami, developed across three conceptual levels, ideally connected by an invisible thread: the border.
\nA border\u2014often elusive\u2014that draws a new social geography in the Old Continent; that discriminates between individuals within the same society; that generates fear, exploitation, and new superstitions; that replaces the pursuit of freedom and tolerance, which Europe has strived for over five centuries, with a new regime of deprivation.
\nThis\u2014and more\u2014is the subject of BR1\u2019s artistic work.
\nThe first of the three conceptual layers is revealed in the courtyard, with the display of photographs from the series Golden Dark Age\u2014created for the Fotografia Europea 2018 off circuit\u2014in which the artist addresses the theme of the veil, its cultural meaning, and its mystery. The images dwell on the contrast between the opulence of the isothermal blanket\u2014an emblem of Western society\u2019s affluence\u2014and the desolation of those who are wrapped in it, arriving from distant shores with no belongings and stripped of dignity. This reading is complemented by Annalisa Pellino\u2019s critical text, which assigns new meaning to the veil: losing its charge of discrimination and oppression, it becomes a protector of female intimacy, threatened by the spectacle-driven society.
\nThe second conceptual layer unfolds behind the photographs, within Spazio C21 space, as a kind of in-depth exploration. Here, BR1 uses other techniques\u2014painting, sculpture, and video\u2014to illustrate the theme of barriers, both physical and cultural, that separate the peoples of the Mediterranean and divide Islamic tradition from the secular culture of the West. This space focuses on the new walls, the notion of \u201cprivatized\u201d freedom, unrecognized rights, communication, and inclusion. Of particular note are the testimonies of BR1\u2019s activist work in public spaces (documented through photos of urban actions and beyond), which remind us that the question of the \u201cOther\u201d and of integration must be faced head-on, not ignored. The ultimate goal of social inclusion is the integration of every individual into society, regardless of limiting factors.
\nThe third conceptual space is located apart from the previous ones, at the entrance to Lo Studio\u2019s offices.
\nIt hosts a selection of works in which the themes of equity and equal opportunity between cultures are enriched by a variety of everyday life images, developed through collage and painting.
\nHere, the border lies in our imagination\u2014between the slit of the niqab exposing a woman\u2019s eyes and the colorful folds of a vibrant hijab.
\nThe presentation of these works fuels reflection on a theme loaded with emotional intensity in our contemporary society.
\nAt the dawn of a millennium marked by a virulent wave of migratory flows\u2014disrupting the already fragile political balance of the European Union\u2014BR1\u2019s work draws our attention to the social consequences of an issue that has already divided Western nations.
\nThe dream of a united Europe, formed by a federation of peoples with ambitions of peace, prosperity, and solidarity, now faces the challenge of extra-European migration\u2014and its social implications\u2014generating insecurity in an already fragile moment marked by economic stagnation, political uncertainty, and labor precarity.
\nThe sustainability of the European integration model therefore depends on the ability to meet this challenge, which our society must confront with a sense of responsibility.
\nThis is why BR1\u2019s work is significant.
\nIf one of the goals of art is to provoke debate and reflection on our future, the artist shows us a path forward.
\nHis language\u2014immediate and respectful\u2014emphasizes equality, freedom, and the respect for human rights, offering us both a lesson in civic responsibility and an invitation to imagine a new future.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Golden Dark Age<\/h2>\n

by Annalisa Pellino[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”centro”]<\/p>\n

The veil creates a deeply unsettling rupture in our organization of the visible\u2014not only within photography or the material image, but also outside, in the context of public space. (B. N. Aboudrar) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”centro2″]The use of the veil in the Arab world is governed by an aniconic system that establishes a clear separation between public and private space. The root of the word hijab<\/i>\u2014the most common type of veil<\/i>\u2014implies something that hides from view, and conceived as a curtain separating the male world from the female one, it defines a space of separation but also establishes a visual field that points, in absentia, to what cannot be seen.
\nAs J. L. Nancy pointed out, even in the etymology of the word \u201cportrait\u201d (from the Latin trahere<\/i>), there is a sense of denial\u2014something drawn out and brought to mind: the image takes the place of the subject, acknowledges its absence, but above all, makes it possible. Where does the subject\u2019s truth and actuality reside? the philosopher asks. And again: isn\u2019t a portrait, first and foremost, an encounter?
\nIn a classic play of gazes between viewer and subject, BR1\u2019s images foster a dialogic visual experience, one in which women are not merely looked at but also look back. In their ability to observe without being seen, they assert their agency, creating a space of resistance against the rules of a phallocentric, misogynistic regime of visibility\u2014one excessively iconophilic in Western culture. While the veil repels the male gaze, it also becomes an image itself, literally marking female presence in public space, subverting the common narrative that sees it as a tool of submission rather than of self-determination. Women who choose to wear the veil often use it as a symbol of religious or at least cultural belonging.
\nIn truth, it is the imposition of a visibility regime based on transparency\u2014that, in the era of terrorist spectacle, has turned into control and surveillance\u2014that renders it a site of subjugation.
\nConsider the recent debate on the veil (such as the burkini<\/i> ban in France), which echoed the coercive unveiling campaigns imposed in colonized territories in the 19th and 20th centuries\u2014even supported by some feminist voices.
\nWhat emerges from this anthropology of the gaze is a key aspect of BR1\u2019s exploration of borders\u2014both physical and mental\u2014with the veil functioning as a synecdoche<\/i>, symbolically subsuming the cultural complexity of an entire geographic area, for which the West has constructed a distorted mirror image of itself.
\nA social and performative object, semantically ambiguous and politically charged, the veil functions as a dispositif<\/i>, disciplining the relationship between knowledge and power and the process of subjectivation inscribed through habitus<\/i>. In BR1\u2019s portraits, some women look back at us through a slit, as if peeking through a peephole. Their faces are shielded by golden fabric. While we recognize the isothermal blanket as an epitome of our times\u2014requiring little commentary\u2014no sense of possession is granted to us as viewers. A few details are enough to stage a secular kind of dressing that overturns the stereotype through interrogation. The subject is nothing other than what emerges from the fold or crack of the dispositif, and it is precisely this fissure that most captures our attention.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”note” css=”.vc_custom_1601892683550{margin-left: 16px !important;}”]1<\/sup> Il velo funziona come la mashrabiyya<\/i>, caratteristica grata usata nei paesi arabi, e in generale segue lo stesso principio aniconico proprio dell\u2019architettura araba. Si veda B. N. Aboudrar, Il velo e il rischio delle immagini, in Come il velo \u00e8 diventato musulmano<\/i>, Milano, R. Cortina, 2015, pp. 149-194.
\n2 <\/sup>J. L. Nancy, Il ritratto e il suo sguardo<\/i>, Milano, R. Cortina, 2002. Si veda anche J. L. Nancy (a cura di), L\u2019altro ritratto<\/i>, catalogo della mostra MART di Rovereto, 2013-2014, Milano, Electa, 2013.
\n3 <\/sup>Sulla natura deittica dello sguardo e sul suo valore come agente dialogico si veda Hans Belting, I canoni dello sguardo: storia della cultura visiva tra Oriente e Occidente<\/i>, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2010.
\n4 <\/sup>Nei suoi studi sull\u2019intima relazione tra modernit\u00e0, modernismo e sessualit\u00e0, Griselda Pollock ci ha insegnato a riconoscere lo spazio urbano fluido della fl\u00e2nerie moderna<\/i> come un\u2019area interdetta alle donne. Si veda G. Pollock, Modernity<\/i> and the Spaces of Femininity, in Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art<\/i>, London and New York, Routledge, 1988, pp. 50-90.
\n5<\/sup> Il caso pi\u00f9 noto \u00e8 quello che ha avuto luogo durante la Guerra d\u2019Indipendenza Algerina, testimoniato dagli scatti fatti da Marc Garanger alle donne berbere contro la loro volont\u00e0.
\n6<\/sup> E. W. Said, Orientalismo. L\u2019immagine europea dell\u2019Oriente<\/i>, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2017.
\n7<\/sup> Sviluppato per la prima volta dalla NASA, il materiale \u00e8 costituito da un sottile foglio di plastica rivestito con un agente metallico, solitamente color oro o argento, che riflette fino al 97% del calore irradiato. Per questo motivo la coperta isotermica \u00e8 utilizzata anche per ridurre la perdita di calore corporeo di una persona. Fonte Wikipedia.
\n8<\/sup> F. Carmagnola, Dispositivo. Da Foucault al gadget<\/i>, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2015, p. 38.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class=”doc”]<\/p>\n