Neil Beloufa | Host’s pov, 2021

For of the “Digital Mourning” exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Neïl Beloufa has created a limited edition set called Host’s pov (2021), taking inspiration from the show itself, as seen by the “Hosts” A, B and C, the three “fake” sculptures that govern it.

The edition consists of a sculptural element in white resin, designed by Beloufa, on which is mounted on a corkboard a silkscreen print made by Jérôme Valton, a printmaker with whom the artist has been working for some time. Silkscreened in twenty different versions, each image represents a detail or glimpse of “Digital Mourning” seen from the perspectives of the Hosts, as implied by the title Host’s pov, in which “pov” stands for “point of view.” By adding a new way of interpreting the role of the Hosts, Beloufa introduces the idea of digital surveillance, a crucial theme of his practice, and implies that the three sculptures are there not only to turn on and off the artworks in different moments—which makes them responsible for how the exhibition is experienced—but also to observe the show at all times.

Neïl Beloufa (b. 1985, Paris) is one the most powerful voices of the generation of artists born in the 1980s. His artistic research focuses on contemporary society and on how it is represented and mediated by digital interaction, through videos, feature films, sculptures, and technologically complex installations. Several major international institutions have put on solo exhibitions of his works, including Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018 and 2012); Pejman Foundation, Tehran (2017); K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2015); Banff Centre, Canada, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Fondation Ricard, Paris (2014).