DEVOTION Le principe de réalité
May 23 - June 29, 2025
Zuzanna Bartoszek, Ava Seymour, Patrizia Vicinelli
Live performances May 23 Rita P & mhm, mhm
PRESS RELEASE
DEVOTION: Le principe de réalité, installation view (2025), GDL525. [The living room is lit by two neon lights illuminating Zuzanna Bartoszek’s paintings Drawing and Children’s Crusade (After Wojtkiewicz) on the left side of the picture frame. In the middle, on a white stand, an Hantarex CRT Monitor (1992), showcases a video portait of Patrizia Vicinelli by italian independent filmaker Gianni Castagnoli alternating with a clip of the poet reciting on stage an extract of Non Sempre Ricordano, in a theater in the late 80’s in the Bassa Emiliana. In the right side of the room prints of Ava Seymour series Rubber Love (1994-1996) are installed in a white wooden and glass cabinet and framed on the wall]*. DEVOTION: Le principe de réalité, installation view (2025), GDL525. *
Zuzanna Bartoszek, Children’s Crusade (After Wojtkiewicz), oil on canvas, 100x140cm, 2025, GDL525. [The painting depicts an historical/mythical event: a crusade of Children, prostitutes and vagabonds, driven by faith and hope, ‘1212’, the date in yellow letters is centered on a red background with figures painted in black, a mass walking towards the viewer and away].Zuzanna Bartoszek, Drawing, 2025, oil on canvas, 100x140cm, 2025, GDL525. [A slightly hunched figure drawing and marking the wall of a cave as their shadow doubles, projected in a candle-like light on the wall. Signs and symbols erupt from and away the picture plane]. DEVOTION: Le principe de réalité, installation view (2025), GDL525. [On the monitor a frame of Gianpaolo Castignoli’s video La Notte e Il Giorno, in the display case and on the wall, Ava Seymour’s prints from the Rubber Love series].
Gianni Castagnoli, La Notte e il Giorno, colour, sound, 3.30 min, extract, Courtesy of Archivio Giovanni Castagnoli, 1976, GDL525. [On the monitor a still of La Notte e Il Giorno, an excerpt of the 67 minutes film shot between 1973 and 1976, during a cross-continental journey through Europe, Africa and America, rhitmically edited on Alvin Curran’s original music score. The frame portrays a ring wore by Patrizia, the director lover and co-traveller. The clip functions as an intimate short portrait of the poet, juxtaposing and sequencing details and close-ups in a play of frames opening and closing continuosly].
Patrizia Vicinelli, Non Sempre Ricordano, 3.37 min, color, sound, courtesy of Le Lettere, Florence,
1985,
GDL525. [The first two frames are from the clips of Patrizia Vicinelli
reciting on stage an excerpt of the epic poem Non Sempre Ricordano, in a theater in the mid-1980’s in the Bassa Emiliana, the last frame is taken from Gianpaolo Castagnoli’s film and features one of the many glass centered shots, dissolving into the abstact texture of its subject].
Ava Seymour, Rubber Love, C-Prints on paper, dimensions variable,
1994-1996,
GDL525. [The series consist of a variety of figures cut up from issues of The Rubberist megazine into spatial backgrounds and scenarios, sourced, recomposed and remixed from various 1970’s interior design megazines. In the picture, an installation shot of the display of the work].Ava Seymour, Rubber Utopia, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper, 210x242cm,
1994-1996,
GDL525.
Ava Seymour, Rubber Chic, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper, 284x218cm,
1994-1996,
GDL525.
[In Rubber Utopia, Rubber Love,
a character dressed in a rubberist diver costume lies in a white ceramic bathtub, looking at the viewer. In Rubber Chic, Rubber Love, set in a Victoria-Style hotel room, a female figure dressed in a red leather costume stands in the middle of the room. Another, seated to the side, is entirely draped in a black leather coat A dog in the lower right corner of the picture-frame looks at the ‘camera’].
Ava Seymour, Rubber Love, C-Prints on paper, dimensions variable,
1994-1996,
GDL525. [In the foreground, the display of Rubber Love. In the background a large glass window frames the exterior of GDL525: the repetitive modular concrete pattern that marks the concrete
façade
of the residential complex and neighbouring apartments and windows]. Ava Seymour, Rubber Love, Rubber Love, C-Prints on paper, 245x228cm,
1994-1996,
GDL525. [On the left side of the image, a figure wearing a white fetish gas mask and a red shiny coat, draping towards the floor gazes towards another, sitting on a bed concealed beneath a red leather sheet. The interiors resemble a hotel room collaging fragments of different spaces and times in a baroque composition. In the background, outside the window, a figure in black leather,
voyeuristically looks in.
Also in the background, a portion of a print frames two seated figures in a Renaissance-style salon arrangement, staged around a low, glass modernist table design. On the right, a cut-out from another print appears].Ava Seymour, Milkmade, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper, 240x227cm, 1994-1996,
GDL525. [In the picture, a figure in a rubber-milkmaid dress sits on a yellow armchair with hands on her tighs, a clown-like figure in the background stands still, partly in the shadows. The space collages 18th century style wooden design, portraits and furniture with striated and tiger patterned carpet designs and floorings.
On the right side of the image, installed in the lower level of a display case and textured by surface scratches, two prints from the series frame other fetish-centered domestic scenes set within mid-century and modern interiors].Ava Seymour, Rubber Butler, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper, 255x227cm,
1994-1996, GDL525. [The scene, set in a vivid pink and white baroque-style 1980’s living room, portrays a ‘’butler’’ dressed in a creamy white trench coat, handling a hat to a woman dressed in a black and red leather suit giving fellatio. A pink curtain block any views from and on the outside, mirroring and doubling the space in the background. Two other images of the series are visible through the scratched glass surface of the case, marking transactions, money,
exchange, the fetish].Ava Seymour, Aunt Daisy, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper,
1994-1996,
220x200cm.
Ava Seymour, Family Portait, Rubber Love, C-Print on paper,
1994-1996,
328x267cm.
[
Set against flowery azure wall-sized tapestries, a mirror, a chimney, and a candelabra, a back-room high-end mid-century interior is punctuated by a wooden figure seated on a chair. Their features are hidden in deep shadow, with a peluche creeping out from their legs—conveying the discomfort of an uncanny absence-presence and the ironic grotesqueness of a strange assemblage-centered composition. On the right side, in the lower section of the display case, a black-and-white image shows three figures in rubber gear looking directly at the camera, the reds, blacks, and pinks of a handprint emerging as the only flashes of color].