3/2/2005
Stefano Cagol
Platform3, London
Lies. It's a large video installation where there'is only a protagonist on the sky's background. The artist elaborate the simbol of the American stars & stripes flag : he take it out from the context and duplicate it. In this way the flag stirred by the wind becames something menacing or the exact opposite, takes on the aspect of a butterfly and of a heart, or instead of armorial bearings. Its message is continuously transformed putting into evidence an uncertain change of values in our difficult realty.
Lies
Platform is proud to present a solo exhibition by Italy based artist Stefano
Cagol. LIES is a project about the difficult moment we are living, about the
difficult international reality.
LIES is a really minimal but powerfull and meaningfull intervention. It's a large video installation, a wall-projection. There is only one element on the sky's background, but there are many different meanings, always changing. In his video Stefano Cagol elaborates the symbol of the American stars & stripes flag: he takes it out from the context and duplicate it, while time is slowed. In this way the flag stirred by the wind becomes something menacing or the exact opposite, takes on the aspect of a butterfly and of a heart, or instead of armorial bearings. So its message is continuously transformed. The extreme, continuous and complex mutability of the image symbolizes the unsafe situation we are living, puts into evidence the uncertain change of values in our difficult reality, contradictions underlined by the title LIES.
The video is 25 minutes long and looped. It's composed by fragments, that are of various length, between ten seconds and five minutes. There are five sec of black between a fragment and the other, but the sequence has not a narrative develop. Fragments are always different, the background of the sky, the distance of the flag, light, rhythm are different. Near the end of the video there are two fragments with the flag on a grey cloudy background. The end is sudden... in 30 sec it develops through a zoom on the flag and at the same time through a blurring, so the image invades all the screen. The sound is created by the original sound of the of New York roads, but it's slowed down and altered by an outer space reverb.
«The continuous aesthetic mutability of a flag - in this case the American one - moved by the wind make me think about the changeability, the insecurity of ideals, of promises, of truth that all seem wrong, that all seem LIES. It makes me think how harshly a man can fight and die for the simple name of one flag. At this moment, I think in particular about the States, they try by any means to convince the world that their projects of war are only for truth and for peace...» Stefano Cagol
This exhibition is the first step of a public art project about the symbol of the flag, which will run through other cities with the collaboration of international art spaces in Tokyo and New York, and of the Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Trento where the first version of the video was showed for the group show New Italian Space.
Introduction & Essay by Mami Kataoka, Senior Curator at Mori Museum. From 1997-2002 she was chief curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. In 2001 she co-curated "My Home is Yours / Your Home is Mine" with Hou Hanru and Jerome Sans. In 2002 she worked with the Barbican Art Gallery in London to produce "JAM: Tokyo-London" which included the work of over forty artists, fashion and graphic designers, photographers, musicians, and performers. In the same year Ms. Kataoka was one of nine curators to develop the exhibition "Under Construction: New Dimensions of Asian Art". She was also the selector, with Hou Hanru, of the Asian galleries that participated in the 2004 ARCO held in Madrid. More recently she has worked on projects with artists: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Santiago Cucullu, Ozawa Tsuyoshi and Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba.
Stefano Cagol. SHORT BIOGRAPHY:
1969, Born in Trento, Italy. Lives in Italy, often works in New York.
1997-98, PHD, Government of Canada Grant Award Holder, Postdoctoral
Fellowship, Ryerson University, Toronto; 1993, MFA, Academy of Fine Arts
"Brera", Milan; 1989, BFA, Art Institute, Trento, Italy
RESIDENCIES AND AWARDS: 2002, Artist in Residence, Leube Group's Art
Program, Salzburg, Austria; 2001, Fellowship, ICP - International Center of
Photography, New York, USA; 1998, Grant Award, Internationale Sommerakademie
für Bildende Kunst, Salzburg, Austria; 1995-96, Residency Award,
Künstlerhaus, Salzburg, Austria
LECTURES: 2004: MiArt-International Art Fair, Milan; TSM-Trento School of
Menagement, Art and Culture, MART-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art,
Rovereto, Italy; 1999: Academy of Fine Arts "Brera", Milan; 1998: University
of Toronto, Canada, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology; 1994: Civic
Gallery of Contemporary Art, Trento, Italy
SOLO PROJECTS: 2004: Tokyospace, Superdeluxe, Tokyo; The Wedding Project,
Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Trento, Italy; 2003: Diary Project 03,
Miami; Dress the Risk, Miss Italy, S. Benedetto del Tronto, Italy; The
Silver Squadron, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg; 2002: Diary project 02,
Miami and New York; 2001: Diary Project 01, New York
SELECTED SOLO SHOWS: 2004: Project Room: video windows, Stux Gallery, New
York; 2003: Palazzo Frisacco, Tolmezzo, Udine; Antonioli, Milan; 2000:
MART-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Palazzo delle Albere, Trento,
Italy; Galleria Estro, Padova, Italy; Fondazione Furlan, Pordenone, Italy;
1999: Studio d'Arte Raffaelli, Trento, Italy; 1998: Ryerson Gallery,
Toronto; 1996: Galerie der Berchtold Villa, Salzburg; Arka Galerija, Vilnius
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS: 2004: Moving Pictures. A Video Installation Survey,
Artcore Gallery, Toronto, Stop & Store, Luxe Gallery, New York; Quadriennale
Anteprima, La Promotrice delle Belle Arti, Turin; Enter. Casoli Art Prize,
Barbara Behan Gallery, London; 2003: Places of Affection. Luoghi
d'Affezione, IKOB-Internationales Kunstzentrum Ostbelgien, Eupen, Belgium;
In Faccia al Mondo, Villa Croce- Museum of Contemporary Art, Genoa; 2002:
New Italian Space - Nuovo Spazio Italiano, MART-Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art & Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Trento, Italy; First
International Festival of Photography. Viasatellite, Mercati Traianei, Rome;
First Detroit Video Festival, Museum of New Art, Detroit; 2001: Public Art
Project: Künstler Brücken. Ponti d'artista. Artists Bridges, Bolzano;
Panorama II, Tiroler Kunstpavillion, Innsbruck, Austria; S.A.A. Strategies
Against Architecture, Galleria Gian Carla Zanutti, Milan; 2000:
Dintorni/Umgebung, Galerie Im Traklhaus, Salzburg; 1999: Whichkraft?, Trans
Hudson Gallery, New York City; Video.it, GAM-Gallery of Modern Art, Turin;
1999, Atlante. Geography of Young Art in Italy, MACS-Museum of Contemporary
Art, Masedu, Sassari; Super Mega Drops, Viafarini, Milan; 1998: Laboratorio,
Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento; 1997, Generazione Media,
Palazzo della Triennale, Milan; 1996, Video Forum. 2nd edition, Basel Art
Fair, Basel. ARTIST'S WEB SITE: http://www.stefanocagol.com
Platform is a project space co-ordinated by Sheila Lawson which shows work by artists from aboard and from the UK.
Project supported by Asteria Multimedia
IMAGE: Stefano Cagol, "LIES", 2004, DVD, Wall Projection, Platform Gallery, London. Produced as Video Frame, lambda print, plexiglas, dibond, 100x130 cm. Edition of 3.
OPENING: Friday, February 04. 2005, 6.00 - 9.00 pm
PLATFORM
3 Wilkes Street , London EI 6QF
Open Thursday to Sunday 12.00-6.00 pm