In dialogue with the exhibition "Remember Me", in which photography serves to preserve the trace of a face, a gesture, or a life in the face of disappearance, the Bourse de Commerce invites Italian director Fabio Cherstich to present A Visual Diary. Through images, stories, and voices, this performance-lecture extends the exhibition’s exploration of memory and transmission by bringing to light the trajectories of artists from New York’s 1980s queer art scene whose stories have remained overlooked for far too long.
Conceived as an “intimate” form, A Visual Diary draws on a collection of private archives, including photographs and recordings gathered by Fabio Cherstich. These materials are interwoven with testimonies from those who today serve as custodians of these artists’ memories.
Conducted over the past decade, this research has led Cherstich to discover the work and stories of numerous artists whose lives were tragically cut short by the AIDS epidemic. Among them, Patrick Angus, Larry Stanton, and Darrel Ellis are at the heart of this exploration, which brings together theatre, storytelling, and the visual arts.
A director and set designer working across theatre and opera, Fabio Cherstich has developed a practice in which a strong attention to the image engages in dialogue with contemporary visual languages. He has worked at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and Opéra Grand Avignon. His productions have also been presented at major international festivals, including the Festival d’Avignon and the Venice Biennale Teatro.
His interest in contemporary art, and particularly in New York’s underground scene of the 1980s and 1990s, has informed several years of research and curatorial work dedicated to its artists.
