Sintassi del montaggio e rimontaggio. Il caso Black Mirror di Mat Collishaw

A fil rouge connects contemporaneity to the past. Mat Collishaw (1966), a key figure among the Young British Artists, is in constant dialogue with the art of the past. His works are pervaded by explicit references to seventeenth century art works, an era in which the modern concept of montage finds its application, spawned in the twentieth century in the fold of cinematography, but that soon, thanks to Ėjzenštejn and not only him, would be extended to other arts. Seen through a contemporary lens the seventeenth century season can, in some respects, be defined as “art of the montage” for the use of cinematic visions, the observer’s role in the imposition of the point of view and the use of particular angles to achieve effects having a scenic impact. Elements re-elaborated, after a long journey in time, by Collishaw. Great attention is dedicated to the project realized in 2014 at the Galleria Borghese, Black Mirror, where the artist works on three of Caravaggio’s own works – Saint Jerome, David with the Head of Goliath and Madonna and Child with St Anne (dei Palafrenieri) – and on The Massacre of the Innocents by Ippolito Scarsella. Collishaw is mindful of the cinematographic aspects of the works of Caravaggio, with specific reference to the close-up angle and the knowing use of the frame, to the role of the light that hides/reveals, crucial elements for that “internal montage” and that makes clear the idea of narrative. A montage that is taken to the second degree also in the reinterpretation of the painting by Scarsella (characterized by the use of multiple points of view “mounted” together) transformed into a zoetrope – a pre-cinematographic instrument in which the 3D figures, activated by a rotational movement, come to life. Ultimately, in Collishaw the montage is configured as an element inseparable from figurative syntax as “re-montage” in contemporaneity.