OSTERIA DA CANEMORTO | CANEMORTO

The first minutes of the video that contains the experience of Osteria di Canemorto flow by and, between be bewildered and intrigued, we continue observing what is happening. It almost seems to be inside a soap opera or a television show: the characters, none of whom is an actor, animate a small village restaurant (osteria in Italian) with their complaints, the customers are unhappy and the restaurateurs are tired and angry. Then appear three characters with covered faces who speak in a strange way so that it is difficult to understand them: CANEMORTO.

The telenovela continues but the action of the artistic collective CANEMORTO makes the intent clear and creates a short-circuit: the artists, by giving life to a narration which stays between kitch and punk, act directly on the territory by proposing an artistic action that cannot be enclosed in a traditional category but that moves between performance, video, painting, sculpture, participatory art and cooking. The paintings on the wall of the tavern, in which hunting scenes are represented, are transformed with direct intervention, the menu is changed and the polenta takes the shape of the dog, the identifying icon of the collective. Disruptive and out of every rule, CANEMORTO proposes an appropriation and dialogue with the place and the community in which they are, breaking down the barrier between artist and audience. Even the artists put themselves among the characters of this telenovela that seems to have a happy ending: we celebrate, drink and eat on placemats made by the artists and more, at the end of the evening, there is the Canemorto Bingo.

Osteria Da Canemorto becomes a container in which the collective tries to force the narrow limits of art and its various categorizations. In favor of a conception of art as form of life there are no more reasons to be frightened if we see the three artists moving and fidgeting among the tables, serving and singing. What remains is not just the creation of a time bracket in which each person, the customer as the waiters, finds themself inside a narration that has no direction other than to embrace the delirious and the exaggerated. In addition to this experience CANEMORTO, however, also returns an intervention on the territory, a shock that questions the cultural heritage of its traditions but at the same time highlights how fundamental it is to maintain a bond and awareness. The subversive and the romantic mix with each other following the same acrobatics with which CANEMORTO moves between the different methods of making art.

CANEMORTO, Osteria Da Canemorto, 2019
Video and art action in collaboration with Trattoria San Biagio, Orsenigo (CO); written, filmed and edited by Bobelgom (ISO3200) ©courtesy CANEMORTO

Full video: link

26/03/2022