the (trivial) bureaucracy of evil – Corriere.it

The performance is scheduled for Thursday 26 January at 6pm, at the headquarters of the Nashira Gallery in Milan directed by Ludovica Bifulco (via Vincenzo Monti 21, first floor), with the patronage of the Jewish Community of Milan. Introduced by Filippo Riniolo (Milan, 1986), visual and conceptual artist author of the performance and by Francesco Cascino, art consultant, Selectionsthis is the title of the performance, takes its cue from the episode of the selection in Auschwitz, recounted by Primo Levi in If this is a man: the prisoners run in front of an SS officer who decides their fate in a few minutes, simply by moving the sheet given to him to the right or left. An act of trivial bureaucracy that draws the distinction between death and life, to bring back the inhuman accounts of the camp.

To this gesture – terrible in the ease with which it is performed – Filippo Riniolo has superimposed another “gesture”: the contemporary one of the technological interface of social channels. As in the social media Tinder, user profiles are scrolled by virtually moving them to the right or left, so during the performance they will be the names of the 1,022 Jews deported during the roundup of the Rome Ghetto to scroll and be moved in one direction or another, making a selection: on the right those who have not returned, on the left the 16 survivors. The song accompanies the performance Rosamundathe march that was played in Auschwitz during the entry and exit of the prisoners from the barracks (free admission by reservation, nashiragallery.com).