Addictions
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About the Works
In the exhibition “Se7en Heaven – From torment to Ecstasy”, held in the Regional Council of Calabria’s headquarters, at the Sala Monteleone, Minoliti deals with the delicate subject of addictions and obsessions.
An addiction is an alteration of behavior which by common custom becomes a pathological condition, creeping into the brain in a sneaky way, without a choice to let it in or not. The addicted, in fact, tends to lose the ability of control over habit.
And it is precisely this lack of control and the resulting uncontrollable compulsions, despite full self-awareness, that led the artist to create the work “Read the leaflet carefully”.
A head completely covered by a quantity of pills and with an antibiotic in the mouth, ready to be ingested, representing Hypochondria.
The title itself is intended to be explanatory and provocative, highlighting the word ‘’carefully’’. In fact, hypochondriac subjects are characterized by a constant concern for their own condition and by the anxious or even obsessive tendency to overestimate every minimum disturbance.
“Bluff” is a work that represent pathological gambling, a real deceit to the brain. A poker card stuck in a bleeding brain that is could appear too crude in the observer’s mind’s eyes, but it is nothing if compared to the psychological and economic damage that can cause the gambling. In fact, this is one of the most devastating addictions and it is increasingly rampant, especially among young people.
It has a strong connection with the drug addiction. So, the pathological gambler shows a growing loss of control, increasing the frequency of bets, the time spent playing the game, the sum spent in the apparent attempt of recoup their losses, investing more than they can afford.
The work named “Target” contains an evident allegory. Two cigarettes take the form of a double-barreled shotgun. The only vision would evoke scenarios of death and mass destruction.
The artist himself, as a retaliation, performs an act of destruction-creation, reducing to smithereens the cigarettes needed for the realization of the work.
In fact, the inside of the two shotgun barrels is full of real tobacco, made from many destroyed cigarettes donated by smoking friends. The cigarettes/shotgun encloses, reveals and fires a pain alarm.
