Milena Galli is fascinated by banality and the moments that cross our everyday life, which we never try to photograph, post on Facebook, or even remember; moments which paparazzi gain their profit from, that are used in advertisements and talked about only by boring people. Some people call it ‘routine’; others prefer to see it as ‘boredom’. Galli calls it daily life and this is what her work is about.
In Sisyphus’ Labour she focuses on the repetitive, frustrating labour that, in our personal life, all of us must go through on a regular basis. Adding humour as a critical component, Galli gives ordinary objects a sense of personality, for example, assembling a table light to flash S.O.S. in Morse code and a bookmark trying to get out from an old book stored on a shelf. Staged in a fantasized way, the project plays with expectation and explores the tedious by tempting the viewer to watch scenes where nothing happens besides an annoying repetition of an insignificant situation, inviting the audience to compare the monotony of daily routine with the labour of Sisyphus.
Milena Galli was born in São Paulo and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from FAAP (Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado) in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been working as a magazine art director and visual artist since 2001 and her personal projects were commissioned by magazines such as MTV, +Rosebud and the 28th São Paulo Biennial’s newspaper. She has exhibited in a number of exhibitions across Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium and currently lives and works in Antwerp.
