Mirror and action for the autumn equinox 2019 at sunrise time.

image: still from the documentation video of the action

The Nile makes me think of a tooth, a molar to be precise, where the details, the drilling, the silver, the various pastes and the enamel mix in the most mimetic way possible, in the attempt to resist to the wear. Here, perhaps, it is the wear and tear of the eyes, rather than that of the weather or of the daring restorations, that makes the big voice as if the thousands of quick glances of the tourists were affecting not only the sense and the history of the monument, but also its presence, its monumentality.

The tourist gaze crystallises monuments in progressively univocal interpretations. Thus the Body of Naples is sculpted in the fixity of the mantra repeated by tourist guides. A continuous procession of small groups, now equipped with speaker and umbrella, now only with flesh.
Then perhaps, in order to bring to light the spectre that inhabits that marble, it is necessary to observe it in the dark, like the photographs that slowly develop in the darkroom. Observe it at night, using, like a dentist, those mirrors at the tip of a stick that extend into the cavities to better identify in the interstices of residues or wounds: a mold, a little rain, a deflated balloon or a cigarette. Traces of yesterday’s time to hack the monument in ritual ephemeral actions.