AustLit

Artist: Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano

Birth date, place: 1972 Stanthorpe, Queensland, Australia

This artist's profile was developed by Claire Smallhorn during 2014 at The University of Queensland as a part of the Visual Arts Curating and Writing course, convened by Dr Allison Holland.

Melbourne based identical twins Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano create video-based performance art together. Their practice began during their studies at the Victorian College of the Arts where they both studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in drawing; Gabriella and Silvana completed the degree in 2001, and 2003 respectively (Zegher and McMaster 117).

Gabriella and Silvana’s performance works consist of their own intuitive and repetitive movements that are activated and influenced by the use of sculptural objects, (fabric, chairs, spotlights and window frames) while also making reference to the architecture/space that the body sits within (Carter). The artists place emphasis on form, structure and sound components within their video works; the relationship between movement and object are minimal (Weir 104). Each performance is edited into an abstract, rhythmic composition that relays their interest in drawing, sculpture and movement, and the ways in which they can be interpreted and applied to different contexts.

Early video installations, particularly, If…so…then..., (2006) depicts a clear relationship between drawing and performance. The work documents the two artists, dressed identically, standing face-to-face in a corridor, making pencil marks around one another’s body in a dance-like choreography (Morrow 6). Gabriella and Silvana’s more recent works show the extension of their interests in the interplay between body and object, and between body and space—extending from their previous ways of working. In Sculpture Sequence, (2012) one artist acts as a pedestal for a lightening-shaped, white sculptural form, while the other takes the position behind the camera (Weir 106).The body is a prop for the sculpture while it moves, rather than the sculpture the prop for the body. The video work functions as an index of sculpture presented within a partly illuminated space and, through this, questions the perceptions of its viewers (Weir 106).

Gabriella and Silvana’s practice shares a formal relationship and conceptual concern with various performance artists and filmmakers. Most significantly, Rebecca Horn’s video work Pencil Mask (1972) attracted Gabriella and Silvana to video-based performance art (Interviews).The documentation of experimental, one-off performances by artists of the 1960s/1970s such as Marina Abramović and Ulay Laysiepen (Abramović /Ulay), Yoko Ono and Vito Acconci have acted as catalysts for Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’s practice (Interviews). Maya Deren’s experimental, black and white film work of the 1940s/1950s has also acted as a guide for the artists (Zenger and McMaster). The pared back aesthetic of Gabriella and Silvana’s videos recalls the austerity of Italian neo-realist cinema, and the work of Italian film director Michelangelo Antoioni (Zenger and McMaster).

The pair has exhibited their work in group exhibitions internationally and nationally, including: More Light, The Fifth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia (2013) and Contemporary Australia: Women, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2011) (Zenger and McMaster). Their solo exhibitions include Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages, Arts Centre, Melbourne (2013) and Shapes for Open Spaces, Anna Schwartz Gallery (2011), Melbourne. In 2013, Gabriella and Silvana undertook a Digital Arts Residency at the Arts Centre, Melbourne and in 2012 were finalists in the Basil Sellers Prize (Zenger and McMaster).

Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano began collaborating in 2001 during their studies at the Victorian College of the Arts (Weir 104). Their collaborative work of the past decade has seen the pair develop a distinctive visual and performative vocabulary (Barlow). Their first work Drawing 1 (2001) shows the artists identically dressed, in profile from either side of the frame, drawing with jerky movements on a large sheet of paper on the wall beside them (Weir 106). Expanding upon the idea of performative drawing, the artists’ intuitive dance-like video performance If…so…then (2006) became the focus of two solo exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2008) and Centre of Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2006).

Residencies in El Bruc, Central Spain and Sicily have provided both Gabriella and Silvana the impetus to create performative drawing pieces that further explore the interrelation between the body, object and the spaces that the body sits within, by incorporating the landscape in their works (Doropoulos). Entitled In the stillness of shadows (2010) their solo exhibition at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney featured a group of works that used the Can Serrat Mountains in El Bruc, Spain as the backdrop (Doropoulos). At the centre of the exhibition, their three-channel panorama Between Near and Far (2008) features the sisters performing a simple action—passing a cluster of shredded paper to one another—as they gracefully move across the landscape (Zegner and McMaster 117).The ‘double’ actions that the twins perform in unison appear as though the footage is actually mirrored (Cohn). Filmed and produced on location in Sicily, In the stillness of shadows, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney (2011) featured a series of works that directly respond to the Sicilian landscape—aiming to reinvigorate its historical past (Weir 107). Through the artists’ responses to their visited sites, Gabriella and Silvana performed ‘monuments’ (gestural movements using objects) to the past and present of the locations that they inhabited (Doropoulos).

Gabriella and Silvana’s more recent works take their project of performative drawing out of the studio space to alternate and unexpected locations. In 2013 their solo exhibition Hidden Spaces, Ready Stages at the Arts Centre, Melbourne, a two month project as part of the centre’s digital arts residency, took viewers to the unseen spaces behind the Arts Centre building (Carter). The work is an immersive multi-screen video installation that explores the movement within the confined (and unseen) spaces of the Arts Centre (Carter). In various darkened rooms and tunnels, Gabriella and Silvana perform a series of choreographed movements that give meaning and thought to the hidden architectural spaces of the Arts Centre.

Although the work of Gabriella and Silvana has changed and progressed throughout their oeuvre, the artists’ project of performative drawing consciously remains at the heart of each work.

“Our video performances evolve through our interest in experimenting with notions of drawing. We evoke the sensibility of drawing through immediacy, movement, repetition and sound. Our works explore spatial relationships between object, body and environment. Sculptural elements in our work act as props to inform movement and gestures from the body. The performances are intuitive and improvised, relying on a silent exchange and mutual understanding between us. The video performances become a visual documentation of the live performance. Duration and time play important roles in the work. Repetition is used to distort time, allowing the audience to be lulled into cyclic movements and rhythms.”

(Quote from Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, 18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations ex. Catalogue, pg. 285)

Anna Schwartz Gallery: http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com/works/works?artist=104&c=m