“Il Frutto” by Massimo Bartolini

1990 · IT · colour · 3’

A dancer suspended from a tree and a double bass player improvising without having seen the choreography create an unpredictable dialogue between body and sound. A work that deconstructs the relationship between music and movement, evoking the painful memory of Strange Fruit.

The early works of Massimo Bartolini all have a performative character, originating in his studies and his involvement with contemporary theatre. In this case, the dancer Lucia Biondo — the protagonist of other early works by the artist, such as Hagoromo (1989), which gives this exhibition its title — dances suspended from an oriental plane tree in the Tuscan countryside. At some distance from this scene, the double bass player Luigi Mosso improvises music based on a choreography he did not know beforehand. “The dance that composes the music that dances,” as the artist wrote on this subject. Already in this early work, one can see Bartolini’s interest not only in theatrical and performative forms, but in the dialogue between different artistic expressions, often through the mode of improvisation. Finally, a form of “deconstruction” is used here to break the unity of the relationship between music and sound, prompting us to observe phenomena in their individuality. The title of the work refers to the song Strange Fruit (1939), in which Billie Holiday sang of the “strange fruit” appearing on the trees of certain southern US states — a reference to the bodies of Black people hanged from the branches.