The Andrea Ingenito Contemporary Art Gallery, with the partnership of Kesté Napoli, a presents the project “I want to sleep, I’m cold” by the Natalina Bonaparte (Taganrog 1993) dissident Russian-Ukrainian artist who, through a video installation, denounces the horrible war and Russian military invasion of Ukrainian territory in February 2022. Natalina Bonaparte is among the few Russian artists dissenting from the government actions, making a cruel film that hasn’t a beginning or an end, in which the artist never speaks and portrays herself as the goddess Tacita from whom Jupiter tore out her tongue.
The Kestè, a historic Neapolitan place, has been a meeting point of cultural events, music and political debates since 1997; a place that is always active in promoting young anb emerging artists. With the new management, it launches the first collaboration between the well-known art gallery to consolidate and continue its vocation and, above all, to relaunch it, making a new cultural driving force for the city.
The video installation will be present at the Kestè from 18th to 22nd January 2023 (every day from 18:00 to 21:30), while the photo exhibition, which also includes some frames of the film taken by the artist herself, will be open until the 18th February. During the opening, with the gallerist Andrea Ingenito – promoter of the initiative – and artist Natalina Bonaparte, will be present Olga Strada, director of the Italian Institute of Culture in Moscow and one of the most authoritative Italian connoisseurs of Russian culture.
What does it feel like when your roots are broken? When you have to live to the feeling of guilt and you don’t know whether you are the victim or the oppressor? When you no longer feel represented by your country?
Natalina Bonaparte tries to answer these questions with her video installation “I want to sleep, I’m cold”, a 40-minute short film in which the artist lays herself bare emotionally with short interior speeches in which she expresses her deepest feelings about the horrible war, although she never mentions this last word. The reflection takes place in an unknown context, in an empty room in which nothing belongs to her and which symbolises not only the condition experienced by the artist, but also that of all immigrants who have left their homes to escape from war and have taken refuge in a foreign country where they have lost their identity.
A buffet/aperitif will be offered to guests at the end of the evening.
Biography
Natalia Bonaparte (Taganrog 1993) is a Russian film director and screenwriter of Ukrainian origins. After graduating in journalism and philology, she trained at the Russian State University for the Humanities specializing in screenwriting and cinematography. Her artistic career began with the realisation of several projects in which she explored the concept of solitude, a concept that will be the main element of all her future works.
Solo project: • Privately (2020) • Sister Midnight (2019) • Room 1752 (2021) • I want to sleep I’m cold (2022).
Work in team: • Arrivals(2018) • I want to tell you something (2019) • Object in mirror (2022).
