BANDIERA NERA [2015]

Mixed media installation. Dimensions variable

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BANDIERA NERA [Italian: Black Flag] is an installation inspired by the life and work of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975), a politically engaged and outspoken queer intellectual. Pasolini has left behind a rich and varied body of filmic and written work that offers a pointed commentary of the political and societal forces that continue to affect us today. This installation examines and mines Pasolini’s works and cultural artifacts in a quasi-archaeological and documentary-driven manner using the archival, the photographic and the indexical. The work proposes a poetic ‘dialogue’ between the artist and Pasolini through the temporality of the moving image, and across spatial and physical surfaces and materials.

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The installation consists of the following discrete works [selected]:

 

• PONTE (VERTICALE) - Digital video projection, plywood

• PONTE (ORIZONTALE) - Embossed works on paper, fluorescent lights

• SENZA PAROLE - Digital video projection, typewriter, table, chair, embossed paper

• VOLGAR ELOQUIO - Digital video projection

• THEOREM - Digital video projection, digital photograph, glass, plywood

• PUNTO - Digital video projection

• TENEBRE - Series of large-scale Polaroid prints

• GRAM/SCI - Work on paper

• SILENCE PLEASE - Soundwork

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Commissioned, in part, through an artist residency at the British School at Rome, Italy

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SHOWN

SCA Galleries (Sydney)

BSR Gallery (Rome)

 

WRITING

Gary Sangster, 'In Theory', Bandiera Nera. SCA Galleries, Sydney, 2015

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REVIEW

Aleksandr A. Wansbrough, “Archaeological Journeys: John Di Stefano’s Bandiera Nera”. Alphaville - Journal of Film & Screen Media, 2016

Frederico Camera, 'John Di Stefano’s Bandiera Nera'. Australasia Journal of Popular Culture, 2015

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BANDIERA NERA is part of the PASOLINI PROJECT - a project inspired by Italian filmmaker and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini 

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INSTALLATION VIEWS: SCA Galleries (Sydney)