CONCILIO
Stefano Cagol
54th International Art Exhibition -
la Biennale di Venezia
home
. introduction . text
. images . video . directions
. press . contacts
. credits
Mart –
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto and
Fondazione Galleria Civica-Center of Research on Contemporaneity of
Trento as promoting institutions are proud to announce Stefano Cagol’s
participation at 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di
Venezia with the solo show CONCILIO at San Gallo Church.
In Stefano Cagol’s solo show curated
by Gregor Jansen, new oxymorons are triggered – through video and
installation – by signaling and
dialoging actions that hit political borders, natural borders, mental
borders.
Developed through the joining of
opposites, the splitting of like entities, through “parallel
convergences” that generate a liminal landscape and a territory on
borders, the solo show CONCILIO ideally starts from Stefano Cagol’s
place of birth, “a territory marking the passage between South and
North, Rome and Wittenberg, between Italy and Germany: Trento, Trentino
South Tyrol.” The very first reference to his city of origin is to be
found in the title which draws back immediately to the Concilio di
Trento, the Council of Trient. So sense of belonging, identity and
history correspond to a site and to an historical landmark, to what is
nowadays defined as a “highly unpredictable event” – i.e. an event with
a controversial influence reaching our daily complexities from a very
distant past – that brings also the opposite idea of tension towards
the unknown and the unforeseen.
Within the frame of San Gallo Church
of the 15th century, a symbolic presence, a complex pyramidical
structure connects different faces to a unique apex. In this way, it
evokes the idea of synergy, of coincidence, of “parallel
convergences,” the not univocal idea of “council,” and refers
also to the public art intervention just realised by Cagol for the new
A22 gate of Trento: a permanent monumental installation of 16 tons of
steel.
In the video installation, other
oppositions are protagonists – atmospheres of ice and snow, wind and
water, of ethereal flames and light. The artist has gone beyond the Artctic Polar Circle, to
a place characterized by a series of convergences of dissonances: it is
the Barents region, the meeting point of the Norwegian, Finnish, and
Russian borders. Chosen in the moment in which the short sun becomes
pallid like the snow of the mountains that it licks. There, the artist
has given life to a series of “actions on the border:” signals that
underline a border, different borders, but at the same time they shake
it, they cross it. Actions of signaling and communicating, of control
and passage.
CONCILIO Stefano Cagol . 54th
International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia . Curated by: Gregor Jansen . Scientific Direction: Gabriella
Belli, Andrea Viliani
Chiesa di San Gallo (San Gallo
Church), San Marco, Venice . 10 am – 6 pm . Free entrance . Monday
closed . May
31 – November 27, 2011
Promoting
Institutions: Mart – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento
and Rovereto . Fondazione
Galleria Civica – Center of Research on Contemporaneity of Trento
info@concilio-biennalevenezia.org
. press@concilio-biennalevenezia.org .
www.concilio-biennalevenezia.org