Selezioni
performance by Filippo Riniolo
January 26, 2023 at 6 p.m.
Introduction by
Filippo Riniolo, author of the performance
Francesco Cascino, art consultant
With the sponsorship of the Jewish Community of Milan and the presence of president Walker Meghnagi
Free admission by reservation
January 27 marks the Day of Remembrance.
To commemorate this anniversary in a special way, on Thursday, Jan. 26, at 6 p.m., there will be a performance by Filippo Riniolo: an artist who used art to make us feel emotionally the horror of the concentration camps and who connected the gestures used in Auschwitz to those proper to the technological interface of social media.
We all happen to move our thumb to the right or left of the phone screen to decree a choice. A gesture we perform with ease and simplicity, without questioning the consequences.
A similar gesture also existed in Auschwitz, only there it resulted in very profound outcomes.
Primo Levi recounts it in If This is a Man. There is a page in the book that describes the process of prisoner selection. The Nazi officer in a few minutes decides their fate, simply handing each one’s card to the man on his right or left. On one side is life, on the other death.
To this gesture – terrible in the ease with which it is performed – Riniolo has superimposed another gesture: the contemporary gesture of the technological interface of social channels.
Just as in the well-known social media Tinder users’ profiles are scrolled by virtually moving them to the right or left, so during the performance it will be the names of the 1022 Jews deported during the rounding up of the Rome Ghetto that will scroll and be moved in one direction or the other, making a selection: on the right those who did not return, on the left the 16 survivors.
Accompanying the performance is the song Rosamunda, the marchette that was played in Auschwitz as prisoners entered and left the barracks.
The duration is about 30 minutes.
