Alba Clemente – Messinscena

auroras is proud to present Messinscena, the first exhibition of Alba Clemente, theater actress, designer, costume designer and visual artist.

The central object of the exhibition is an installation in the library where the artist recreates a small theater she built in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The backdrop is an image of the Teatro Asolo (Treviso, IT, 1798), overlaid with a drawing of two Tarot cards, an image that symbolizes her and her husband as one. In Alba’s miniature reproduction of this theater, the spectator is placed in an imaginary place, where the actor’s vision and the audience’s vision overlap. Still in the library, the artist displays a series of drawings on canvas inspired by “Victory City”, Salman Rushdie’s latest book. Surprisingly graphic, and at the same time quiet and understated, this series is titled “City of Words”.

The main space is dedicated to a series of drawings on paper and fabric recently published in her book, “A Clear Mind”. The book is a key and a map of Alba Clemente’s eclectic life experience, and is divided into five parts: memories, thoughts, emotions, politics and fantasies. All these themes are represented in her witty and surprising drawings.

Upstairs, a video shows how her theater works, followed by a film of the play directed by Andrew Ondrejcak. Titled “Live Portrait: Alba Clemente”, the film is inspired by the adventures of Alba through drawing, travel, fashion and theater – a range of diverse expressions made
coherent by the artist’s unique touch.

Alba Clemente is an Italian actress and artist based in New York and Amalfi. Born in Amalfi (Italy), since she was a child she had one passion: theater. Alba began organizing puppet shows and acting from an early age. When she eighteen she went to Napoli to study set and costume design at the Academy of Fine Arts. At the same time, she was performing in classical productions like Moliere’s “Don Giovanni” or Oscar Wilde’s “Salome”; and experimental productions: “Lucky Strike” directed by Vittorio Lucariello (in Napoli and Rome) and “Locus
Solus” by Raymond Roussel.

After meeting the artist Francesco Clemente and a long hiatus spent traveling in India and raising their family, she moved to New York where she became a muse of many important artist (including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, Alex Katz and Julian Schnabel) and a fashion icon, and she also returned to her first love: the stage. Alba Clemente started to design costumes for Karole Armitage, Richard Move, Julio di Santodomingo, Andrew Ondrejcak, Jay Scheib, amoung others. She collaborated with costumes at the historical “the Kitchen” in New York and at the Guggenheim Museum. In 1994, Alba Clemente acted in “The Human Voice”, iconic play by Jean Cocteau directed by John Heys and music by Arto Lindsay.

Alba Clemente has written two songs with the “Pink Martini”: Una notte a Napoli in Italian and Ninna Nanna in Neapolitan dialect. She has performed her songs with the “Pink Martini” at the Museum of Modern Art, at Carnegie Hall and at Town Hall in New York and at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Around fifteen years ago, drawing became an important practice for her. Since then, she started to publish books with collections of these drawings, the most recent one being “Clear Mind”.