They live among us

for BoCS Art, curated by Alberto Dambruoso (Cosenza) 2017

The project was born during the BocsArt artist’s residency and it originates from a parallelism between the wolf, a totemic animal of the city of Cosenza, and the figure of the artist in the collective imagination. In fact, the artist is often considered as a strange animal, on the edge of society if he/she decides to escape the capitalist logic of productive utilitarianism.

Starting from Pellizza da Volpedo’s Quarto Stato, Conte elaborates a static march on the large Bocs window. A march in which people mingle with men and women with wolf heads. The public can march with them by occupying the empty spaces in the window.

The work promotes protection, integration and participation, tracing the very same aspiration to inclusion of the Gay Pride that was taking place in the city for the first time precisely on July 2017.

The ideal of “feeling at home” is the root of the pictorial intervention as of the opening of the Bocs. The artist felt welcomed by the residence and by the city, so he wanted to welcome back the other artists, and the activists, the supporters and the sympathizers of Pride, and all the visitors who ideally wish to join the Vivono tra noi march.

The title is deliberately ambiguous, because the omission of the subject makes it impossible to understand whether it is wolves who live among “normal” people or “normal” people who live among wolves: inclusion is not intended as adherence to the pre-existing system, but to the peer acceptance of the other.