Ottonella Mocellin
The choice of the title is the key to Ottonella Mocellin’s works. In La fine delle illusioni (The end of illusions, from the title of the book by Arundhati Roy), the artist herself, in the role of a karaoke singer, recites a premonitory text about war that no one listens to. The work was commissioned by the City of Milan to cover the scaffolding during the restoration of the Arco della Pace, a monument erected by Napoleon celebrating his military conquests. The image was printed in a gigantic scale and was visible for months during the restoration of the monument. The piece in the collection is the maquette that was presented presented for the call.
OTTONELLA MOCELLIN makes her artistic journey as an individual and also as part of a couple with her partner Nicola Pellegrini. She realises performances, photographs, installations and videos in which she is actress and director. Conflict, emotionality, dialogue and incommunicability in romantic and family relationships are recurring themes, as in La fine delle illusioni (2002). The titles she chooses are essential to understanding her works, they are a statement or a question to open a dialogue with her audience. Each series is made of a set of narratives and references to film, literature and music and episodes, reflections and moments from her own life. The image changes; it is blurry, overexposed and inverted, with altered colours; it is gradually rejected and replaced with sound. *She was born in 1966 in Milan, where she lives and works today.