HOARDIN OFFENDERS. My memories will never die #02

New York, NY 2012

The project was stimulated by the observation of socio-behavioral phenomenon of compulsive accumulation (disposophobia) in progressive relief starting from the 1940s. Today it is estimated that there are more than 2 million compulsive accumulators in the United States. The windows therefore lose their original function and acquire a new one, a curtain through which the man possessed by his objects can be observed; but the project also lends itself to a more individualistic interpretation in its relation to the concept of identity and self-memory. Indeed, the theme of memory is by no means marginal if connected to its opposite, oblivion. What does it mean to remember? It means selecting pieces, moments in one’s life. In this sense, wanting to find a literary analogy, Baron / Conte’s “hoarders” are a bit like Borgers’ Ireneo Funes who remembers everything, keeping in his memory any shred of reality with which he comes into contact, and which eventually he will be paralyzed by the huge amount of his memories. And here the physical paralysis becomes an existential metaphor, in Borges as in the project “HOARDING OFFENDERS. My memories will never die ”by BARONE / CONTE.

Veronica Conte was born in Castellanza (VA) in 1977. She studied Sculpture at Brera Academy in Milan, initially directing her attention to the extreme use of the body in the language of film, theater and art. The search for identity becomes central to his work, initially focusing on its most self referenced aspects and then spread to a less intimate research through the use of travel as a form of knowledge of the Other. This allows her to introduce the time component by using the path as a tool to investigate relationships through the expansion of space-time dimension.

Umberto Barone was born in Palermo in 1978. He graduated in Communication at University of Siena. After a brief experience in Rome as an assistant director in the production of a historical documentaries, he moved to Milan where he began working as an assistant to some of the best photographers in fashion and advertising. From 2004 he quit assisting and started working as a photographer himself. So far he has published two books (a third is coming out), collaborates with various Italian and foreign publications and has created advertising campaigns for large clients, and Yamamay Sky among others.

Barone/Conte collaborate for the first time in this project. One is an artist, the other one is a professionist in advertising communication, the duo has combined in this work the particular visions of two apparently separate worlds but increasingly converging in the current language of contemporary art.

39,4” – 100 CM H 59” – 150 CM L

Edition of 5

REF: V818