Untitled (Prayers) 1996-2005

Untitled (Prayers) 1996 - 2005 is a series of understated and deceptively simple actions, which have been created by Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci, and which incorporate mundane materials. 70 such actions have been developed by them to date, each lasting between one and nine minutes. Of these, up to 15 are carefully edited together by Cool and Balducci to produce an evening performance lasting between 45 and 55 minutes. Each performance is unique, with a different set of actions being performed and in a different sequence.

Cool and Balducci use the term sequence, borrowed from the language of film, to describe these actions in which, through a slow zoom effect, the viewer is led to a close-up revelation on their own experiences. The artists investigate individual memory and experience with the aim of producing emotional tension, moments of suspension and uncertainty, and as they put it "to touch people". It is their intention to establish an immediate, intimate and charged dialogue with their audience.

Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci live and work in Paris. Since 1995, they have been producing actions on everyday objects and materials as a response to, and in critical relationship with, the Arte Povera movement. Invested in the working conditions of the industrial and technical eras, the artists work with ordinary objects or materials that are easily accessible to consumers. Their use of gesture is usually associated with simple acts and repetition that imprints art with a common, ubiquitous language.