Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages
July 2013
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano at the Arts Centre
In anticipation of the upcoming exhibition at Melbourne’s Arts Centre of local artists Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’s new digital installation, a work-in-progress website was created to document the developing stages of their creative project
Here records of the artists’ visual encounters with the subterranean backroom environment of the Arts Centre complex – which forms the subject of the installation – are divided into four categories: air, light, concrete, and colour. It is interesting to consider that, of these four forms, only one is conclusively associated with a manufactured presence: concrete. Air in particular is ordinarily associated with that which is naturally occurring. Yet in the world of Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano breathe only circulated air, their life-giving atmosphere propelled around a dystopian ecosystem by pipes, vents and fans.
The current exhibition comprises a video, sound and light installation – exhibited on-site in Riverhouse next to Hamer Hall – in which the artists, who are sisters, explore the engine rooms of the Arts Centre complex. The video also features a performance component, which was acted by the artists in the readymade industrial spaces that lie largely unnoticed below the building’s principal performance venues. The degree of contrast between the bright and luxurious spaces upstairs and the shadowy, concreted tunnels that feature in the sisters’ project provides a surprisingly provocative commentary on how we navigate our society and in what areas (of a building) we customarily exist. The readymade sets (machinery, control and pipe rooms) used by the Manganos to stage their performances are also contrasted with the strictly constructed stages in the theatres above stairs.
The sisters were initially approached to make the work as the first recipients of the new Digital Arts Residency at Melbourne’s Arts Centre: “We were asked to explore spaces the public never sees.” The artists describe this award as “an exciting opportunity for the visual arts in Melbourne”. Not only is it an advantage for practising artists, but it is also a way of amalgamating the local visual and performing arts communities. According to Silvana Mangano, “It extends what is contemporary art to the regular audience at the Arts Centre,” and “broadens the audience” by additionally attracting visual art enthusiasts to the complex.
In addition to being given the opportunity to create a new site-specific work, the sisters were also offered studio space in the Arts Centre itself. Thus, by occupying the building not only through their art but also in their artistic execution and everyday lives, they developed what they characterise as a “rhythm with the building”. Moreover, in selecting a space in which to exhibit the work, the Manganos chose not a plush or neatly white-walled room, but “an exhibition space that is quite raw; like the underground areas, there is a lot of concrete,” says Gabriella. In this respect the space at Riverhouse mimics the environment in the artists’ work, only insofar as the work existed as a “play” in advance of the space existing as its “stage”. The experience for the viewer will certainly be as immersive as OH&S will allow.
Since classical times, artists and philosophers have been telling us through their works that the world is a stage. Gabriella and Silvana Mangano continue this conversation in our digitally-centred era, striving to extend our understanding and enjoyment of the performance environments around us (both fictional and factual). This exhibition also gives the visitor an insight into the machinery of performance at Melbourne’s Arts Centre.
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano’s digital installation Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages shows at the Arts Centre, Melbourne, from July 27 to August 4.
Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano. Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages (Production Still) 2013.
Cinematography: Tim Metherall under the direction of Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano
Images:
Courtesy of the artists and Anna Schwartz Gallery
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