Act 5 Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
Action 5 of The World's Heaving Breath
Fishead Lab is currently presenting a retrospective of performance documentation by the artist duo Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, focusing on a work from 1997. The exhibition runs from May 15 to May 27. Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci will present a live performance during the finissage on May 27 at 19:00.
In the space, two enlarged Polaroid photographs and several pieces of lightweight plastic sheeting are displayed, positioned on either side of the room. The plastic sheets in the exhibition recreate those used in the original performance—lightweight plastic membranes that allow air to enter naturally, maintaining a state of “enclosure” and “inflation.”
Untitled
Work break, lightweight plastic sheet for maintenance work, 1997-1999
These images/documents record the work. At the time, they were produced as a quick way to document a process; the method was neither systematic nor purposeful.
The action unfolds in two consecutive moments.
In the first moment, inside the plastic sheet, a figure pushes itself vertically upward in a movement lasting approximately one to two minutes. This tension causes the air trapped inside the sheet to heat up. The figure also refers to Paul Thek’s work Fishman (1968).
In the second movement — that of the fall — the heated air generated by the previous action causes the plastic sheet to form a kind of envelope. The envelope, with the figure lying on the ground inside it, remains“inflated”for approximately four to five minutes.
The title is deliberately explicit, encapsulating the political tensions experienced by the individual within systems of production and classification, as well as the desire or necessity to escape them.
The work has been presented several times in various exhibitions. Here are a few: attitudes, Geneva 2000, Public, Paris, 2000, South London Gallery, 2002, curated by Donna Lynas, and in 2003 in the exhibition“densite +- zero” at the Ecole de Beaux Art in Paris, curated by Marianne Lanavere and Caroline Ferreira.
Artist
Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
(Born in France; born in Italy. They live and work in Paris, FR)
Their practice centres on actions performed with everyday objects and normed industrial materials, through which they test the concept of ownership and expose the futility of attempting to possess or achieve visual ascendancy over them. By employing standardised, easily accessible components and elementary gestures, they dissolve hierarchies between the inanimate and the animate, between space and the action performed within it, foregrounding a principle of reciprocity inherent in possession. Repetition and striking slowness introduce a poetic element that breaks with production norms, shifting attention from outcome to process and suspending the expectation of a finished result, inviting the viewer to experience the present not as representation but as analogy and contingent relation.
Within the framework of Fishead Lab’s Flowing Banquet program, the exhibition The World's Heaving Breath is curated by Yin Shuai and young collector Khemerin Vismara. The exhibition title is drawn from Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1922 poetry cycle Sonnets to Orpheus, taking the rhythmic movement of “breath” as a connective medium through which to respond to contemporary conditions.
The exhibition unfolds through five interrelated “acts,” each lasting ten days, forming a sequence of dialogues. The participating artists come from diverse backgrounds: Marie Cool Fabio Balducci (France, 1961; Italy, 1964), Bart Houwers (Netherlands, 1997), Liu Ding (China, 1976), Juan Pablo Macias (Mexico, 1974), and Margherita Moscardini (Italy, 1981).
Their practices unfold like the movement of breath: maintaining individual autonomy while remaining inseparably interconnected. Together, they shape a collective inquiry into the dynamics of perception and the construction of meaning through artistic production. From their critical perspectives, the exhibition invites viewers to engage experientially with overlooked connections, and—amid an anticipation of ongoing instability—to rediscover possibilities for inhabiting the world and its structures.
Project duration: March 5 – May 27, 2026
Location: Fishead Lab, Via Eugenio Camerini 2, Milan
The World's Heaving Breath
March 5 – March 15: Margherita Moscardini
March 19 – March 29: Bart Houwers
April 9 – April 19: Juan Pablo Macias
April 23 – May 3: Liu Ding
May 15 – May 27: Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
Presented by Fishead Lab
Graphic Design: Wang Yuxuan
Project Coordinator: Zhou Ziqi
Communications: Liu Ziwei
Exhibition Installation: Tan Di