Giovanni De Francesco & Marta Pierobon

Giovanni de Francesco and Marta Pierobon, both artists who work individually, on their first collaboration present an in-progress project that started in 2017: ”Giano “.
In this series of works the two artists represent each other, creating a series of double portraits.

Fun fact: Marta e Gio they have a body (one each!). Using them they sat one around the other and started modelling their faces, sharing napes

I always wondered how could one do a portrait without hurting the feelings of the subject.
Ew. Do you really see me like this?
I see you as 18 toxic relationships. Can you imagine the anxiety? At every second feeling another living out of your nape?! I can’t help but sympathise with them, I feel their distress as I was the one living this coerced fusion. Incapable of ideas that wouldn’t be shared with their back-side (a nemesis, a better half? In any case get lost). Some of them are weeping (attention seekers, victims, pathetic). I think they’d like to sink their head into a pillow and never be seen. But the act of laying down must also be negotiated with the burden they carry on their back.
Ilook at them and name them in my head: love-bombing, triangulation, gaslighting... then red flag, no con- tact...
Just imagine this would happen to you. You can never look into someone’s eyes, still you are doomed to carry them with you at any moment. What kind of relationship you wish to have? To love a person and never be allowed to have them in front of you. Or to despise them but still having to share your body w them? Same same.
I’d say, any kind of closeness would become intrusive. Imho the best scenario would be to have neighbour- like relationship, detached and still friendly. A well behaved connection based on small-talks and no risk of eye-contact. Mild at heart.
Is it fine I think of them as burning bins to gather around, stretch the fingers towards them to avoid them freezing? Maybe is the material they’re made of, or the glazed surfaces that I’d like to suck.And then con- cluding the last real question is: what’s going on with their buttholes?
So I burst out:
“Oh Janus, what side you have your anus?”