Stefano Cagol
dal 9/4/2008 al 16/5/2008
Segnalato da
9/4/2008
Stefano Cagol
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York
Guinea Pig. A Mixed Media Project. The artist focuses his investigation on toxic additives that pervade both toys and food by interpreting them as a symbol of our human fragility and exposing how they influence, compel and deceive us. Utilizing references that are immediate and familiar to the public, Cagol intersperses propagandist slogans throughout his installations, videos and public actions.
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of GUINEA
PIG, the first solo exhibition of Italian artist Stefano Cagol in New York
City. Cagol focuses his investigation on toxic additives that pervade both
toys and food by interpreting them as a symbol of our human fragility and
exposing how they influence, compel and deceive us.
In numerous ways, Cagol recapitulates our current state of dissatisfaction
with the natural essence of things and our increasing coercion to crave a
heightened intensity through ubiquitous food and toy additives... He
exploits two very basic activities - that of eating and playing - to prove
that we are all unwitting GUINEA PIGs of a globally extended lab that is
constantly experimenting with our lives.
Utilizing references that are immediate and familiar to the public as
magnets to attract audience attention, Cagol intersperses propagandist
slogans throughout his installations, videos and public actions. The use
of a common vocabulary and familiar concepts transforms them into powerful
signifiers of new and at times, contradictory meanings. In the work GOD,
TOY and EAT, three three-letter words are presented separately in a series
of three black light-boxes. The encased glittery text appears iconic, like
inscriptions or commandments, recalling timeless warnings inherited from
the ancient past about human folly that are, at the same time, a testimony
to it.
Cagol literally demonstrates this through a staged and videotaped public
demonstration in which he protests with banners and badges about this
condition using freshly re-contextualized text and words. Driven by the
relentless prevalence of mass media, everything around us has become
routinely and overtly unnatural, "over the top", artificially manipulated
and genetically mutated.
As a lesson to be learned, Cagol wants us to reflect upon the devastating
effects of risky experimentation, pointing out that the Epicurean search
for the mutated extreme, the perfect food and toy, will eventually and
most-likely backfire.
Stefano Cagol was born in 1969 in Italy and raised in Switzerland. He
currently lives and works in Italy. He holds a BA in Fine Art from the
Brera Academy in Milan and was recipient of a post-doctoral video art
fellowship from Ryerson University in Toronto. In 2007, Cagol was the
subject of several solo exhibitions including a project at NADiff (the New
Art Diffusion exhibition space in Tokyo) and Head Flu in Venice. He also
participated in numerous group shows including Tendencies of Contemporary
Research at the National Museum of Arts in Hanoi, From and To at the Kunst
Merano Arte in Italy which occurred in collaboration with Stealth.ultd
Rotterdam and The edge of vision at the National Gallery of New Delhi.
Since October 2007 his commissioned public art installation, Flu Power
Flu, has been displayed on the facade of BeursSchouwburg Art Center in
Brussels. Cagol will be included in the 2008 group show, Eurasia
Geographic Cross-overs in Art curated by Achille Bonito Oliva at MART
(Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rovereto Trento, Italy) during
Manifesta7 (the European Biennial of Contemporary Art taking place in
Trentino-South Tyrol).
Join Priska Juschka and the artist at the gallery for an opening reception on Thursday, April 10, 6-9 PM
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
547 West 27th Street - New York
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 to 6:00 PM or by appointment
Free admission