Alice Guareschi, Je m'appelle Olympia, L'Olympia Music Hall, Paris, 2012

Inspired by a visit to this legendary Parisian music hall and its rich theatrical history, Guareschi was "...mesmerized by the silent wonder of the lights...," and subsequently created this work in response to this vivid experience. A text on the inside of the cover explains in greater detail the different elements that come together in this piece:

"Je m’appelle Olympia is an action for house lights performed by Alice Guareschi on just one occasion at the Olympia Music Hall, the legendary and iconic Parisian venue, on April 12, 2012. The sixteen photographs that make up the series on show at MAN were shot on the same day, right after the live activation of the light choreography in the theatre’s empty space, which involved all thirteen of the coloured lighting channels that are permanently integrated into the architecture. With a fixed framing, similar but not identical, following the precise original lighting score composed by the artist, the images present a sequence of different movements of lights in the auditorium. The photographic series thus becomes a new synthesis of the image-idea and intention behind the performance: to activate a theatre when no show is happening on stage, to play it live, to reawaken its latent memory and the secret life that eludes the spectator’s gaze. By breaking down the duration of the action into photograms that can be viewed either separately or all together, the spatial arrangement of the work now makes it possible to embrace the overall idea at a glance."

This book was made on the occasion of the exhibition Je m’appelle Olympia, Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro (MAN), Italy, July 14–September 17, 2023.

Alice Guareschi (1976) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Milano. She holds a MA in Philosophy from the University of Bologna with a thesis on experimental cinema. Over the years her work has included a wide range of media such as writing, sculpture and video. In 2005 she was resident artist at the Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon in Paris, in 2012 and 2015 at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Other residencies include Triangle, New York, and Kaus Australis, Rotterdam..

19 double-sided pages, individually 5.5" x 7" and when unfolded 11ft 1"

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