When Darkness Became a Stage: Gio Montez at Ground Zero
During the 2013 edition of Ground Zero, the contemporary art festival curated by Liviana Baldini, the medieval town of Orte witnessed one of the festival’s most daring and unforgettable performances: Action No. 3 “Organization” by artist Gio Montez.
For one night, the town square—surrounded by centuries-old stone buildings—became an improvised open-air theater where light, darkness, and the human body collided in a powerful, collective act of creation.
“The activity or entity that systematically corresponds to the needs of functionality and efficiency of a mostly collective enterprise.
In biology, the series of processes through which organs, systems and structures are formed, develop, differentiate and coordinate so as to constitute a living organism.”
def. da Oxford Languages
The Square Goes Dark: The Spark of the Performance
In the late afternoon, under the astonished eyes of residents and festival visitors, Gio Montez—his entire body painted black—began climbing the streetlights in the square to unscrew their bulbs one by one, gradually turning off every source of public lighting. Within minutes of sunset, the heart of Orte was plunged into total darkness, broken only by a single UV light placed by the artist at the center of the scene and by the occasional headlights of passing cars, which became unwitting luminous backdrops to the performance.
Fluorescent Collective Painting: A Living Canvas in the Dark
Drawing inspiration from the fluorescent art exhibition “Abduction”, curated by Kaey Art at Atelier Montez, the artist directed a collective painting action: buckets of fluorescent paint were dripped onto a large canvas and onto the performers walking across it, turning them into “living brushes.”
The result was an expanded dripping technique across bodies and canvas, where color, body, and movement fused under the UV light, while everything else vanished into the darkness of the square. The performers’ fluorescent figures traced unpredictable trajectories, creating a spontaneous, unrepeatable artwork—a true living painting.
Special guest of the action was the German-American artist Eva Moll. By exposing her naked body painted white on a pedestal above the canvas laid on the ground floor, she completed the living tableau: the UV-reactive white body painting rendered her female figure suspended in the void, floating in the darkness above the tumultuous fluorescent bodies beneath her.
An Unexpected Finale Through the Medieval Streets of Orte
Once the performance concluded, with the square still bathed in ultraviolet light, the semi-nude fluorescent artists spilled into the streets and taverns of the medieval town, leaving behind a lively and surreal procession. The bright trails painted on their bodies wound through alleyways, arches, and ancient walls, stirring astonishment, curiosity, and stories that still circulate in the memory of the locals.
An Unexpected Finale Through the Medieval Streets of Orte
Action No. 3 “Organization” stands as one of the most emblematic moments of the 2013 Ground Zero Festival: a site-specific intervention that interlaced performance art, participation, wonder, and expressive radicality, leaving a vivid and lasting imprint on the small community of Orte and on the artistic trajectory of Gio Montez.
Azione n°3 – Organizzazione
01/09/2013, Orte (VT)
Director: Gio Montez
Actors: Lele D’Alò, Andrea Di Giuseppe, Gio Montez, Eva Moll, Francesco Perri, Giacomo Capogrossi, Carlo Giordano, Kaey Art.
Camera: Alessandro Di Fraia
Sound design: Surrism Phonoethics
