VAF

Queste sagome scolpite dalla luce emergono in una scenografia per lo più buia e rimandano all’idea di simulacro. Alla base di questo concetto sta la credenza magico-rituale nell’identità reale tra figura dipinta o scolpita e persona raffigurata. L’effige assume, nella tradizione della rappresentazione artistica, un potere che possiamo ridurre a due teorie: quella riferita da Plinio, secondo cui le origini della pittura, ma anche della scultura, derivano dalla pratica di tracciare delle linee intorno all’ombra di una persona, come se fosse un potenziale disegno; la seconda teoria nasce dalla credenza che l’immagine costituisca un equivalente dell’individuo morto, seguita dall’idea che lo scopo del ritratto non sia solamente quello di mantenere viva la memoria del defunto, ma di prenderne il posto e incorporarne l’anima: il kolossós non è un’immagine, ma un “doppio”, come il morto è un doppio del vivo. Nella visione dei greci il fenomeno del “doppio” determina una vera e propria categoria psicologica: testimonia contemporaneamente la presenza e l’assenza.

Anche nell’elaborazione simbolica il pensiero costruisce oggetti attraverso delle forme che costituiscono un doppio del dato naturale. La mente pratica una continua sostituzione e crea infinite immagini, illusioni che nel fenomeno del sogno hanno una delle manifestazioni più note.

Conforme a questo senso di irrealtà, di illusione, può sembrare l’opera artistica, e le figure del gruppo J&PEG, quasi metafisiche, sospese in una sorta di limbo spaziale, sembrano portarsi appresso tutto questo substrato culturale e antropologico, come esemplari delle diverse tipologie incarnate dal genere umano.

Sculture effimere che paiono anime. Del resto il kolossós posto nella tomba vuota assieme agli oggetti appartenuti al trapassato, valeva come sostituto, assicurando un posto alla sua psyché errante.

The collaboration between Antonio Managò and Simone Zecubi is named J&PEG, a denomination that alludes to the most widespread digital encoding of image files.

Through their photographic shots, they freeze statuesque bodies in time, capturing poses as a sculptor would in marble. However, delving into their language and modus operandi, it is revealed that these are real individuals covered by a thin and elastic fabric of lycra that wraps around their bodies. The process of dressing, or rather veiling, is long, patient, and elaborate, concealing the identities of the actors involved in the composition. Sometimes, the artists themselves impersonate the figures. Paradoxically, the act of concealment highlights precisely those details that define the depicted subjects. The finishing touches of the garments, the shape of a hat, the cut of a jacket, even if not clearly visible, manage to convey to the observer the idea of an identity, a specific role in the social context, and even a temporal placement. Not all the figures are rooted in contemporaneity; in some cases, they transport us back to the recent or distant past. However, they always represent gestures and attitudes that hold a universal symbolic value, perpetuated in the images.

Similar to the korai of the Archaic period, dressed in chiton and himation, the characters portrayed by J&PEG deny facial features. The folds and interplay of light and shadow that result from this absence shape the forms.

These light-carved silhouettes emerge in mostly dark scenography and evoke the idea of simulacrum. At the core of this concept lies the magical-ritual belief in the real identity between the painted or sculpted figure and the depicted person. In the tradition of artistic representation, the effigy assumes a power that can be reduced to two theories: the one proposed by Pliny, according to which the origins of painting, as well as sculpture, derive from the practice of tracing lines around a person's shadow, as if it were a potential drawing; the second theory stems from the belief that the image constitutes an equivalent of the deceased individual, followed by the idea that the purpose of the portrait is not only to keep the memory of the deceased alive but to take their place and embody their soul: the kolossós is not an image but a "double," just as the dead is a double of the living. In the Greeks' view, the phenomenon of the "double" establishes a true psychological category: it simultaneously testifies to presence and absence.

Even in symbolic elaboration, thought constructs objects through forms that constitute a double of the natural given. The mind engages in continuous substitution and creates infinite images, illusions that find one of their most well-known manifestations in the phenomenon of dreams.

In line with this sense of unreality, of illusion, the artistic work and the figures of the J&PEG group may appear almost metaphysical, suspended in a sort of spatial limbo. They seem to carry with them all this cultural and anthropological substratum, as exemplars of the different typologies embodied by the human gender.

Ephemeral sculptures that resemble souls. After all, the kolossós placed in the empty tomb, along with the objects belonging to the departed, served as a substitute, ensuring a place for their wandering psyche.