A REAL “DRIVE IN” ORGANIZED AT THE EX ALFA GARAGE

The works of Francesco Jodice are extremely rich in terms of stimuli and insights, a series of analyzes which allow you to contemplate the consequences that works of art have on the quality of our daily experiences. Francesco Jodice utilizes photography, video, written pieces, and always creates ‘episodes’ at each exhibition, engaging and involving the local communities, areas, and populace. From all his works emerges the disorientation and bewilderment of the contemporary world and he captures the substantial mutations which are often lost on those who normally reside in the area. Francesco Jodice believes that art is the heart of the social body, and he creates works that manage to stay both in and out of the traditional boundaries of the display area. Geopolitics, changes in the social landscapes, and urban anthropology are some of his dominant themes; Jodice creates relational processes, starting from the social and urban tensions stemming from new human settlements in cities, which are forever transforming the face of the planet.

For this event, Francesco Jodice creates an actual Drive In; spectators are invited to view the film created specifically for this event from their cars: "I like working on pieces depicting the blue-collar Milan, to imagine the impulses that these suburbs expressed in the 1970s. The idea of the ‘drive-in’ was created as homage to an industrial space, associated with the production of cars, and hence I found the possibility of transposing these cars back into this space after more than forty years as an interesting and intriguing opportunity.” The reference to the movie "La notte del drive-in: Milano spara" is not only a tribute to the genre of police films of the 70s, very active in that decade, but also a means to remember the social tensions vigent at the time which were also the expression of a vibrant and intense society, never restrained and characterized by contrasts and extremes”.

“The ‘drive-in’ for me also represents a consideration on the need to have a jovial and spirited attitude in the contemporary art world, currently asphyxiated by the laws of the markets and bon-ton. The politically incorrect picture of cars parked in the space, with food trucks that prepare “sausage sandwiches” during the screening of the movie, with the scenes of violence and vulgarity in the movie a playful recreation of a new art. This is basically a return to the 1970s, the desire for a breath of fresh air and more divining and less pompous artistic processes;” says Francesco on describing the event.

Jodice seems to pose the question: how can you help create a new vision that recognizes its own identity as an engagement of multiple identities? It simply creates a “zone” of vision, a step towards the contextualization of that which appears already defined and established, but instead, as explored in various contemporary art pieces, is intertwined with a critical discussion on globalization. Works and visions, thus pictured as mixed and creole expressions, migrating, clandestine, and rebellious. For Francesco Jodice, art is a poetic form of awareness, when, as often happens in the news, the counterpart’s face seems to threaten our identity.

Francesca Alfano Miglietti