The Autopsy of Tralalà is the title of Masbedo’s exhibition at Noire Gallery.
The new series of works includes videos, photographs, and video installations, all produced entirely in Iceland. This is a testament to the analytical research skills of the Italian video artist duo who, with unflinching precision and surgical clarity, carry out a lucid autopsy of the desires of contemporary humanity. They employ a metaphysical pictorial language unique to them, addressing the limits and possibilities of the human condition. The Masbedo explore how desire is atrophying the sense of existence, interpreting desire as a neurosis of modernity and the sole driving force behind all Western capitalist societies. The choice of Iceland, a remote island floating in the far northwest of Europe, encapsulates two concepts always present in Masbedo’s work: the beauty that arises from a sense of estrangement and mystery, and the resulting sense of solitude. This land—a block of lava covered by glaciers, born from the clash of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates—sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a fracture that continuously opens, tearing it apart at a rate of three centimeters per year. Iceland thus becomes the locus of the metaphorical fracture of the West, a metaphysical and surreal setting for analyzing the crisis of contemporary societal values. It conceptually represents a paradigmatic dimension for humanity and serves as the perfect framework for Masbedo’s existentialist mental scenographies. On display at Noire Gallery are three single-channel videos: The Incompleteness Theorem, Glíma, and Person.The first two works explore the challenging relationship between man and woman, a central theme in the artists’ research. One examines the destruction of the sanctity and intimacy of a couple, while the other depicts a battle of manipulation—a metaphorical struggle between masculine and feminine figures lost amidst ice, water, and volcanic sand.
Glíma is a journey through a mental landscape where desire flows in long black filaments, a frustrating and alienating sustenance that both separates and unites the two beings, highlighting the absolute impossibility of truly belonging to each other. The video’s music was composed by the band Marlene Kuntz and producer Gianni Maroccolo, with performances by acclaimed Icelandic dancer Erna Omarsdottir, a muse for artists such as Jan Fabre, Björk, and Placebo.
The final room of the gallery presents a large video installation that lends its name to the exhibition: The Autopsy of Tralalà. This dark fable is set upon the very rift that, widening by three centimeters annually, is splitting the West in two.
