VIRUS
performance: Arte Fiera, Bologna, 2004
Virus is investigating
over the 'buying bulimia', that affects the daily-life models and the
art world as well.
Liuba went to Bologna Artefiera's opening dressed with red points. Then
she took off them from her dress and put over all the art works exhibited
at the fair, creating astonishment, collapse, confusion and funny shock
over visitors, gallerists, artists. An ironical reflection over value
of works and value of selling.
"In the series
called Virus, the artist is a sort of living sculpture. Dressed in a
black outfit with red dots, the notorious sold stickers, the artist
went to art fairs and placed them under several works under the noses
of upset gallerists and stunned visitors. The sold dot is a universal
sign that makes the difference. You judge a work in another way if it
has been sold. Red dots mean money, power, and often fame. The same
performance in Bologna (Italy) and in New York had extremely different
results. Liuba's main interest in doing this provocative performance
is the social aspect of the reactions, a sort of anthropological point
of view. The audience's reaction, in fact, provides a direct and immediate
take on a country, a people, and
its issues. At the SOFA, Liuba generated such an angry reaction that
she was forced by the Show Management to leave the fair. The ironic
aspect of this strong reaction is that security guards spent at least
20 minutes explaining to her what the red dots mean in the U.S. before
they pushed her out, confiscating her cameraman's ID and passport "because
people pay for having a booth and people pay for visiting the fair,"
as they kept repeating in the video.They could not even imagine that
she was sticking red dots on purpose – to the security staff she
was a silly woman acting pointlessly. In Italy the gallerists at the
fair were really annoyed by her, but it was clear to everybody that
she was playing with the art system and this provided a degree of entertainment
at the same time. Liuba's works are based on the direct comparison between
the artist and the audience, the live performance and the recorded video,
the rules and the illegal.
(Irina Zucca Alessandrelli)
