THE VOICE OF THE GESTURE, THE VOICE OF THE IMAGE

2021

installation
projection, wax sculptures, 2 chanel video

My project is an artistic research based on the study of sign language to decode and re-interpret the use of hands as an communicative element in contemporary politic speeches. 

I collected the gestures used in two recent political speeches to get closer to the (un)conscious meaning given to gestures by the speaker. By casting with wax the collected gestures and repeating it in front of the camera without the content of the speech, I hope to create a narrative in which certain questions will be raised, such as: What kind of gestures are associated with power today? How do the gestures reinforce the power of the speaker? Is it possible to recognize power in the gesture separated from the words?

(The political speeches used: Donald Trump, The Presidential Inauguration on CBSN U.S. Capitol, Friday, January 20, 2017 – Mark Rutte, Press conference on Coronavirus measures, The Netherlands, Tuesday, October 13, 2020)

The research starts from an investigation of the gestures used in Christian art. The speaking hands (holding up 3 fingers) were commonly used in paintings to communicate the act of speaking or the authority of the represented character. This gesture is often used in the Annunciations, when the angel announces to Mary that she will become the mother of Jesus. The incarnation of God is one of the most important dogmas on which the Catholic church founded its authority and power.

(Piero della Francesca, Fresco part of ‘The history of the True Cross’ – Annunciation, San Francesco church, Arezzo, Italy.) 

The alleged announcement to Mary took place in a humble house in Nazareth and therefore this space became worthy of veneration. That place has been represented by painters throughout the history of art in different ways. My bas-relief is the 3D translation of the space represented by the Italian painter Piero della Francesca as a scenario for that announcement but without characters. That place and that announcement on which the Catholic religion is founded is a place of power. The transformation of those imaginary spaces into objects refers to the veneration of relics on which the church reinforces the truths of its dogmas. Can an architectural space that has witnessed an alleged divine intervention be transformed into an ‘object’ of power? In what does its power consist? And does the object maintain its power in a context other than the religious one?

Public exhibitions:

PAKHUIS WILHELMINA’S first BIENNALE (2022)
Exhibition at Wilhelmina Pakhuis, Amsterdam.

ARCHITECTURES OF NOISE (2021) 
Oscillations between knowledge and realities, W139 Amsterdam 
(W139 — link to the event )

Exhibition view at W139:

See my other work

Pierfrancesco Gava

Atelier
Wilhelmina Pakhuis
Veemkade 596
1019BL Amsterdam

Phone: +31(0)6 41681139
Email: pierf_gava@hotmail.com

Want me to get back to you? :)

Contact Form