A barricade of light and shadow that challenges boundaries, emotions, and the fractures of our society
Words MATTIA MARCASSA BARBIERI
With a career spanning decades, Benassi has consistently illuminated the unseen and unheard through his unique photographic style. His signature use of flash captures fleeting moments, exposing their stark contrasts while shrouding their peripheries in mystery. In Sàlvati Salvàti—loosely translated as Save Yourself Saved—Benassi uses this technique not just as a method of photography but as a metaphor for the paradoxical nature of visibility: the way society alternates between shedding light on marginalized voices and silencing them altogether.
The exhibition Sàlvati Salvàti by Jacopo Benassi is a visceral, disruptive, and deeply emotional exploration of the fragmented realities we inhabit. Hosted within a gallery space transformed into a barricaded battlefield of ideas and identities, Benassi invites us not merely to observe but to feel, question, and grapple with the raw edges of our times.
A Stage of Exploding Realities
At its heart, Sàlvati Salvàti challenges the conventional role of exhibitions as passive spaces of observation. Here, visitors are confronted with a chaotic barricade, a structure that is both literal and symbolic. The barricade evokes historical moments of resistance—May ’68, the French Revolution—while simultaneously echoing ongoing global crises in Ukraine, Palestine, and Sudan. It forces the viewer to navigate a space imbued with conflict and fragmentation, mirroring the political and social polarizations of our present era. Yet Benassi’s barricade is more than a historical or political metaphor; it is also a commentary on the function of art itself. What agency does art have in a world defined by division? Can it provoke, heal, or merely reflect? By positioning the gallery as a public forum rather than a serene enclave, Benassi disrupts the comfortable detachment of traditional spectatorship.
Flash as a Lens on Anger and Complexity
Benassi’s use of flash, both literal and figurative, permeates the exhibition’s narrative. The bursts of light in his photographs illuminate the vitality and tension of marginalized communities while revealing the paradox of photography itself: the light both exposes and conceals, just as society’s structures alternately highlight and obscure its deeper fractures. This technique aligns seamlessly with the psychoanalyst Josh Cohen’s observations on anger as a defining emotion of contemporary life. Cohen suggests that the anger and confusion permeating our social and political landscapes stem from deeper, unprocessed emotional experiences. In Sàlvati Salvàti, Benassi captures this “emotional texture” with haunting precision. His works are not mere images but emotional detonations, where suppressed feelings, identities, and histories collide with the flash’s intensity.
Performance as Collective Catharsis
During the exhibition, Benassi extends his exploration of conflict and community through a series of live performances. These ephemeral gatherings transform the gallery into a shared space of vulnerability, breaking down the isolation often inherent in the art-viewing experience. In Brutal Casual, the audience assumes the role of photographer, subverting the traditional hierarchy of artistic authorship. This act democratizes the creative process, allowing strangers to collectively craft an ephemeral narrative, further blurring the lines between observer and participant.
A Call to Embrace the Unknown
The title Sàlvati Salvàti encapsulates the duality at the exhibition’s core: the tension between saving oneself and being saved, between isolation and collective liberation. Benassi reframes the gallery as a space not of resolution but of confrontation, where visitors can engage with the complexities of their emotions and the fractures of society. In a world teetering on the edge of ideological and emotional implosion, Sàlvati Salvàti offers a space for reflection and expression. It rejects the binary narratives of inclusion and exclusion, instead fostering a liminal space where the unknown can be explored and new possibilities can emerge. Jacopo Benassi’s Sàlvati Salvàti is not merely an exhibition—it is an urgent, flashing warning and a manifesto for our times. By daring us to confront the chaos within and around us, it invites us to transform fear and division into collective understanding and action. In the blinding light of Benassi’s flash, we find both a reckoning and a path forward.
