PERFORMING GENDER
Exhibition by Pietro Agostini
Curated by La Trape
In collaboration with spazioSERRA
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On display from 26/03/2024 to 07/04/2024
Opening Tuesday 26/03/2024 at 19:00
Lancetti railway station, Milan
Performing Gender is a series of eighteen photographic portraits, curated and produced independently by Pietro Agostini between 2021 and 2023. The project narrates the vibrant reality of an Italian queer scene that stages its artistic expressive needs through the lens of gender.
The work is exhibited for the first time from February 26 to April 7, 2024, at spazioSERRA, a public exhibition space at the suburban station of Milano Lancetti, managed by the homonymous collective in which the artist took part in early 2024.
Performing Gender stems from a personal need even before being authorial. It is a self-exploration of the boundaries of aesthetic-social identity that becomes a celebration of diversity. Its dual nature, artistic and educational, unfolds through a style influenced by advertising language to bring a niche reality to a wider audience. The aim of this project is to promote knowledge of the queer world beyond its usual boundaries and to glorify its existence as a political act.
Performing Gender aims to address a series of issues related to the LGBTQIA+ world, through the representation of artists and performers from the community who daily stage their lived experiences, on and off the stage. The paraphrase of their world sheds light on topics that are increasingly discussed but not always fully understood. All this without simplifying its complexities.
The selection of portrait subjects has been carefully curated to include a wide range of nuances of the LGBTQIA+ community in terms of gender identity (before and after the performance), intersectionality, ethnicity, personal history, and creativity. Despite this, the selection was conducted by the artist from within the scene itself, of which they are a part, through their personal connections. All subjects were photographed in one-on-one sessions, where they could express themselves without any filters imposed by the project, in a completely authentic manner.
The photos have an aesthetic common thread given by the execution methods. All shots were taken on film (some in 35mm, others in medium format 6x6) in the same studio, processed in the same laboratory, and digitized consistently with the style, which balances fashion, photography, and cinematography.
Pietro Agostini (Milan, Italy, 1994) has been working with photography since adolescence. After graduating from the classical high school Beccaria, they obtained a master's degree in Communication Design from the Polytechnic University of Milan and began collaborating with the Milanese creative studio The Jack Stupid in the fields of fashion and advertising. Their artistic work explores the relationship between aesthetics, identity, and gender issues, combining traditional design methods with more experimental research. In addition to their photographic work, their activities include cinematography, drag art, and music.
La Trape (Ferrara, Italy, 1993)'s performative research starts from a mutant and changing queer body that lives in a limbo of uncertainties in the face of a society that imposes rigid categorizations. Since 2014, she has been performing in drag, blending artistic language with the club scene, in Italy and at international festivals such as Bushwig Berlin and New York. In 2021, she collaborated with artist Daniele Costa for the creation of the video artwork "Trapezia", winner of the Lydia award, Fondazione Lazzaretto. The work was exhibited at PAC and for the occasion La Trape presented two new performances. In 2022, she participated in the Lago Film Fest with a new performance set within the lake, at night.