Jacopo Miliani
Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2020
1979
Italy
Frutta
Jacopo Miliani's practice addresses performance as an expanded methodology which aims to investigate the connections between language and the body.
‘Vogueing’ is not only a contemporary dance style but also a language primarily acted by Black and Latino gay, gender non-conforming and transgender communities. Vogue is based on the imitation of the stock poses and gestures of models featured on catwalks or in glossy magazines such as the famous Vogue itself, from which the dance takes its name.
The video Hands is performed by Matyouz: dancer, Master of Ceremonies and commentator of many Vogue Ball Contests. The performer tells a story through the movements of the hands creating a new form fo language.
The drawings are in connection with the performance Thowing Balls at Night presented at DRAF, London (2016) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017). The works are inspired by Jeux, a 1913 poème-dansé (danced poem) of the Ballet Russes created in by Vaslav Nijinsky, which features a young trio frolicking during an evening game of tennis. The ballet pièce was inspired by the fashion of the time that implies tennis matches at night settled in pri- vate gardens between Paris and London. Miliani’s work re-imagines the flirtatious ‘games’ and references settling the story in a contemporary Vogue Ball. The attitu ...
The sculpture, realized with the lost wax technique, represents ropes fixed in poses and movements. The moves of the object speak in absence of the body/hand, in fact the rope is an object, which in absence of other strengths of tension, is dominated by the force of gravity and it doesn’t have a fixed shape.The sculptures show the movement of the object still in impossible poses, emphasizing the ephemerality and impossibility of them in real life.
Jacopo Miliani is a visual artist living in Milan. His research has recently been granted by the Italian Council, MIBACT (Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities). His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions, including MO.CO, Montpellier (2019), GUCCI Garden, Florence (2019), GAMeC, Bergamo (2019), Centro Pecci, Prato (2019), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017), David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2017) Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2016), ICA studio, London (2015), Studio Dabbeni, Lugano (2015), Frutta, Rome (2014), MADRE, Naples (2011). He is currently working in his first feature film “La discoteca”.
He is the founder of an independent publishing project that focuses on sexuality and language: Self Pleasure Publishing. He has collaborated with different performers including Jacopo Jenna, Antonio Torres, divaD, Benjamin Milan, Mathieu LaDurée, Eve Stainton. His projects have featured professionals from various disciplines including the filmmaker Dario Argento, the fashion designers Boboutic, the writer Walter Siti, the semiotician Sara Giannini and the music producer Jean–Louis Hutha.
Adrienne Drake
Director and curator of the Giuliani Foundation for Contemporary Art, Rome
Ilaria Gianni
Curator and Art Writer
Samuel Gross
Curator and Art Writer
Jacopo Miliani
Teorema Teorema Teorema, 2019
Video, Sound, Color. Length: 8’33’’ (excerpt)