Whitehot Magazine
"The Best Art In The World"
CORPICRUDI
Based in Genoa, CORPICRUDI is a visionary artistic project conceived by Italian artists Samantha Stella and Sergio Frazzingaro. Together, they conceptualize the artistic direction of live installations or opening events, and shoot photographs and videos by “alternating” themselves in their sets. Their philosophy is beauty as politics; their work is a combination of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, perfectly balanced between harmony and disharmony, light and drama, good and evil.
Luca Beatrice, nominated as the co-curator of the Italian Pavillon at the 2009 Venice Biennale, co-curated Beautiful Untrue People, CORPICRUDI’s first show at the Lipanjepuntin art gallery. International fashion photographers, designers and stylists, video artists and musicians were asked to give an interpretation of the CC concept, while CC performed, directed and presented a photographic series and video trilogy. Among the scores used in the CC videos was a track by Client with Peter Doherty. The show's title was a tribute to Oscar Wilde: “Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art” (The Decay of Lying, 1891) A subsequent project, Lux Aeterna, took its name from a score by Clint Mansell for Darren Aronosfki's fim “Requiem for a Dream”. Featuring Kronos Quartet, it was used as a soundtrack during the show. Italian Haute Couture designer Alessandro de Benedetti collaborated by creating a beautiful white collection, also titled Lux Aeterna, which he presented on the catwalks of the Milano Fashion Week.
Their 2008 White Lux installation was a conceptual photographic project in which they also started to work on installations with architectural/design elements. White Lux was shown in Cavallerizza Reale, an old space in the center of Torino. This installation was the set of the first act of their major international collaborative project, Primo Toccare (“First Touched”) by Matteo Levaggi, an important Italian choreographer with Balletto Teatro di Torino. In 2009, Black Lux featured a plex structure, representing a kind of Catholic altar with two models dressed in black, standing motionless. The altar was put in the middle of the stage with dancers performing around it. The second act of Primo Toccare premièred for three days at the Joyce Theater in New York in October 2009 and achieved a 4-star review by the Financial Times. The clothes worn by the models for both White and Black were designed by de Benedetti, while the dancers’ costumes were designed by Samantha Stella.
In July 2010 CORPICRUDI is presenting two new artworks: the Red Lux installation for the Primo Toccare dance show at TanzBozen festival in Bolzano, and a site-specific installation at Castello Aragonese in Taranto (a castle on the sea in a town south of Italy, home of the Italian Navy). CORPICRUDI will present a live opening event with videos, bodies and structural elements and a fixed installation in the archaeological site inside the castle from their Aeternitas work in progress (subject of their last solo show dedicated to the Roman Goddess of eternity for which their first official monography was published.)
Kofi Forson is a writer, POET and PLAYWRIGHT living in NYC. His current blog is BLACK COCTEAU, a mixture of philosophy and art on modern culture.
Email: lidonslap@gmail.com