Exhibitions
07 Dec 2018
Viron Erol Vert
Staff Only
On the Threshold of Leaving
Inauguration on 07 December at 1 pm
It is with great pleasure for Villa Romana to announce the inauguration of the work Staff Only by the Villa Romana Fellow Viron Erol Vert on 07 December 2018 at 1 am in the Villa Romana. The installation represents the material conclusion of his ten-month residency at the Villa.
The work Staff Only is specifically intended for its location: It will be installed in a site that appears to the artist to be a neuralgic spot in the life and activity of the Villa Romana, on the way to a rear exit into the garden, next to the entrance to the office kitchen. It is a threshold at which the paths of the various inhabitants and individuals employed in the building cross and informal encounters occur. It is here that cigarette breaks are taken, the wine is opened for opening events, and this is the spot, this location with little by way of an official character, that reveals the particular inner soul of the building.
Vert´s work is inspired by the printed text, Staff Only, on an adhesive piece of paper that aims to limit access to the area to a certain group of people. The artist´s interpretation presents the written command of limited access on a panel of Carrara marble, its format and typographic style inspired by the Florentine street signs. The work thus gestures to the handling of the legacy of the Renaissance, not simply in an art historical sense, but more particularly in the context of regulated membership of a group and its associated privileges and obligations, not least in the formation of early capitalist systems. Vert thereby raises the question of the extent to which the social status of a person is linked to work or collaborative work, and the extent to which participation in other areas is limited to that status.
The fact that Vert himself stands at the threshold, about to exit the social system of the Villa Romana, and that the Villa, too, finds itself in an ambiguous situation regarding the systems in which it will be integrated in future, has the effect of expanding the current relevance and semantic relations implied in Vert´s Staff Only.
We are grateful for the attention that the coming ceremonial unveiling of the new work has attracted. However, we also wish to note that, in line with the exhibition’s concept, only staff and inhabitants of the Villa Romana are invited to attend.
