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Desiree D'Alessandro executed an action painting and punching performance on an 11-foot canvas. She revived the boxing gear she formerly donned for her 2014 Women's National Golden Gloves title. In addition, she wore boxing wraps crafted from sterility sheets acquired when she was her father's caretaker prior to his passing. The piece honors her father's memory and his wish for her to remain strong, to keep pushing forward, and to keep punching.
The title, Lightboxer, is a play on the term shadowboxer. We seek our own light while facing our shadows and demons in life. This is a collective battle, not an individual one. The conclusion of this performance incorporated a collaborative component where audience members were invited to participate in marking the canvas, thus embodying their own lightboxer.
This video was projected on to an 11-foot canvas during the Lightboxer performance. The water during the action painting rounds symbolized where ashes of the artist's father, brother, and mother were laid to rest in the Hillsborough River. In-between the rounds is a visual void featuring only audio excerpts of the last audio recording the artist possesses of her and her father. They reminisce fond memories from the past.
1,000 Hours of Training is a slightly humorous, boxing-related contemporary take on Tom Friedman's "1,000 Hours of Staring" conceptual artwork. After training nearly two years and preparing for a state championship, D'Alessandro won the Florida Golden Gloves on 1/13/12 by way of walkover. D'Alessandro is officially the 2012 Golden Gloves Female Middleweight Champion of Florida without ever having to throw a punch.
Found objects on display include the division bout sheet, champion medal, and official event t-shirt.
This work is a father-daughter mixtape that features a retrospective compilation of their favorite fight and/or training songs between 1982 and 2010, spanning 14 tracks from different artists. The custom cassette booklet also includes a recent transcribed conversation between the two exploring the father's fight history and the artist's current boxing pursuits. Exhibited at Tempus Projects, Tampa, Florida.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO TRACKS
SIDE A (1982-2004)
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor • Keep It Up - Snap • Go For It! - Joey B. Ellis • Good Vibrations - Marky Mark
• Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J • 'Till I Collapse - Eminem • Can't Be Touched - Roy Jones
SIDE B (2006-2010)
Round One / Boxing - Kray Twinz ft D&G • It's a Fight - Three 6 Mafia • Born To Win - Papoose • Knock 'em Down - L.T.D.A • To Be King - Outlaw • Champion - Flipsyde ft Akon • Ready For The Fight - Young Punx ft Count Bass D
This custom cassette booklet accompanies the mix tape and features a transcribed conversation between artist and her father.
The two explore the father's history as a prison fighter and daughter's current boxing pursuits as an art form.
D'Alessandro Fight Jamz Booklet (5MB) (pdf)
Download This immersive directional audio environment provides the unique opportunity to hear first-hand what it sounds like to get inside the ring for a competition boxing bout. To create this work, D'Alessandro integrated binaural microphones and a digital recorder into her headgear to capture the visceral data of what happens inside the ring, from an intimate perspective other than that acquired via ringside or televised broadcasting. The competition rounds highlight the physical sounds of the blows, the breathing, and the grunts. During the interval breaks, D'Alessandro takes a creative approach to depict the mental battle that ensues between rounds, resulting in a disorienting direction-shifting overlay of advice derived from transcriptions of her YouTube-posted training sessions with boxing coaches across the nation.
Exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara, CA and the 2011 Re/Mixed Media Festival in Dumbo, NY.
A Boxer's Soundscape: The Battle During and Between Rounds
2011
Immersive Audio Installation, Synchronized Boxing Interval Timer
Three 2-Minute rounds, 1-Minute Intervals; Infinite Loop
Audio Excerpt
Boxing has had a profound impact on D'Alessandro's relationship with her father, who himself was a fighter. They watched televised fights throughout her childhood and she recently rediscovered this photograph where we are standing together and he was s wearing a Tommy Morrison vs. George Foreman t-shirt. D'Alessandro was compelled to share the photograph and take a contemporary portrait with her father. The work exists as a triptych that unites the past and present while pointing to her current boxing investigations as a fated endeavor.
Desiree D'Alessandro © 2024. All Rights Reserved.
www.desireedalessandro.com