Thomas Struth, Audience 11, Florence, 2004, chromogenic print,
185x299 cm - Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT;
on loan at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea,
Rivoli-Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin
LETIZIA MURATORI
on Audience II, Florence by Thomas Struth
Castello di Rivoli - Museo d’arte contemporanea
Every so often it would be nice to vanish; poof, just like that. I could trigger some sort of blackout in the gallery, then sit back and enjoy the show. Maybe my viewers wouldn’t even notice they’d suddenly been turned into actors. I exist in their eyes long before they even see me, so my image would probably survive the darkness of any blackout. Is it because I’m white? I shout; some afternoons I taunt them. But they don’t hear me, let alone know I’m watching them. Ok, I’ll admit it: I have lousy vision, blurry and from the same eternal angle, sculpted in marble. But I know, for instance, that the girl on the left in the foreground is looking upwards. Her gaze is curious, yet tempered by admiration. She’s properly rapt. While that lady with the cardigan tied around her waist – what’s she inspecting? The audioguide? Her phone? Many people get intimidated when they come into my presence, girding themselves with information before taking me on. I understand. Is it because I’m naked? I shout to the lady’s husband, who is instead staring at me unabashedly, dressed from head to toe. Oh well, he’s still better than the one in shorts, socks, and sandals. What’s his problem, giving me such a defiant look? And then that other guy, in the dark t-shirt, see him? He’s mimicking me. And the woman in the tank top who has the nerve to turn her back on me? She’s already seen enough. And every pair of feet out there, every single one, is aching. If only I could get them to notice me, break out of my silhouette for a second and bounce a basketball on that Tuscan terracotta floor. It looks like it was made just for basketball.
I’m white, I’m naked, I’m made of marble, I live in a gallery; have you figured out who I am? Michelangelo’s David, I can almost hear you say in chorus. But I don’t like choruses. Let’s play a game. You remember that game that gave your brain a rest after toiling away at crosswords and other magazine puzzles? It was called What Will Appear? and you had to colour in the shapes marked with a dot until a single revelatory drawing emerged. Let’s try colouring in the silhouettes of all these viewers, what will appear? Not the gaze, but the sightline that survives the act of seeing. Millions of those lines linger on in here, year after year, adding to that strangely full space that lies between me and the viewers, so that when they finally gain a vantage point they feel like it is not over, that it’s not just a matter of making their way past the other heads, but that beyond this temporary barrier, another obstacle awaits: the ghostly, public skin of the museum.