barbarauccelli at L'ingresso Pericoloso

Artistic suicide has long been romanticized. For centuries now, society has cheerfully delegated artists to the outskirts where their bizarre, erratic, and emotional behaviour can happily take place while they create their masterpieces and kill themselves if they must. Suicide is just another example of artistic behaviour, as if their sensitive and emotional natures were too developed for this world. These artists are considered different, other-worldly, the 19^th century notion of madness being linked to creativity. Often times, after their dramatic exit, the public flocks to their work because it may suddenly hold the key to their tormented spirits, engaging in an act of voyeurism, witnessing the artist’s distress without being directly involved.

Barbarauccelli’s (written as one word) show “Writers” at L’ingresso Pericoloso challenges society’s romanticization of artistic suicide. The photography/video/installation show presents Uccelli as five women writers that have committed suicide: Marina Tsvetaeva, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, and Sarah Kane. A minute-long video is dedicated to each artist, the minute prior to death, Uccelli as the writer photographing herself before she takes her life. Each room and corridor of the gallery is dedicated to a writer with a video, a life-sized photograph and the object symbolizing her method of suicide.

The show is called “Writers” but the works themselves do not address the women’s writing. These photographs and videos portray the women who have made a conscious, deliberate decision to commit suicide. It’s not a celebration of their writing, or their lives, of their personalities, or a celebration of their suicides as writers. It is about the force of their decision, they are not hysterical nor are they depressed, they look like iron, they are stubborn and heavy in their hot pink shoes.

Probably the most impressive is the room featuring Virginia Woolf. Stepping into a dark curtained room you encounter a pool of water with a giant photograph of the artist as Virginia Woolf standing in a pool of water with stones in her pocket. She stares at you with determination, her mind is made up, this is the moment before she dies. A small video screen on the side wall shows Woolf slowly taking photographs of herself before she dies.

All the photographs and videos share the same leitmotif of hot pink high heeled shoes. Each woman wears these shoes, a symbol of their female power and desire to express. The fact that each work was done in the studio places these women in a timeless position. The setting of the white concrete wall and floor is non-descript, makes the hard stare of these women even more affective. They stare at the viewer, at the public who made them famous, challenging our voyeurism. They are not victims of their personalities, their decision to die is just one more force of their will.

But of course it is not possible to ignore who they are, they are writers who expressed their torment while living in this society and thousands people could relate to their difficulties and unease. Barbarauccelli connects their suicides to their writing in the fact that their conscious decision and need to write is the same kind of decision to die.

"Writers" by barbarauccelli L'ingresso Pericoloso, Rome 3 October - 13 November