05 Sep 2011

100 days of CONCILIO. Stefano Cagol. 54th Venice Biennale

* On September 8, 2011 (5 – 6 pm) the Stefano Cagol's solo show CONCILIO at 54th Venice Biennale celebrates the first 100 days of opening with a performance by the artist.
The exhibition will be on display until November 27, 2011 at the San Gallo Church near Piazza San Marco and until now has had 15,000 visitors.

> NOW on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CThcjL-DkYU The video footage documenting the exhibition!

With the performance Evoke Provoke (the border), the artist creates a space-time shifting and – inside the symbolic space of the church – realizes one of the actions of the video.
Cagol has realized the video more than 300 km north from the Arctic Circle in Kirkenes, Norway where he was invited by the curatorial team Pikene på Broen as artist in residence at BAR International on last winter.
In that desolate twilight, the artist has completed an expedition in total solitude, accompanied only by a video camera with tripod (which was covered with ice at the Arctic temperatures) and by some means of signaling, danger, flares, headlights and a normal aerosol can of hairspray that gangs use to put on fire as act of identification and of demonstration of power.
By these means, and in these places he has triggered a series of attempts of communication: communication across the border between fire and ice, between human presence and nature, the balance between dark and light, earth and water, high and low tides, as well as political boundaries between the extreme edge of Norway, Finland and Russia, cultural borders, and borders of mind.
As backdrop to the new performance, in addition to the church itself, there is also a sculptural landscape exposed inside it. There are three steel complex pyramid shapes, three crystals as symbols of the power that creates boundaries: ones of the extreme Arctic nature, but also of the city of Trento, which has hosted the Concilio di Trento, the Council of Trento. The Roman name of the city is Tridentum, which means three teeth, three mountains. Trento is the birthplace of the artist, who has chosen to evoke the Council as an event of the past whose effects are present even today on a planetary level, and strongly influence the balance and the current cultural borders. An event that creates an oxymoron between its denomination and its actual results, because not reconciled, not united, but divided.

Curated by: Gregor Jansen
Scientific Direction: Gabriella Belli, Andrea Viliani
Promoting institutions:
Mart – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto
Fondazione Galleria Civica-Center of Research on Contemporaneity of Trento

For press inquiries, images, interviews, please, contact:
press@concilio-biennalevenezia.org
press@mart.trento.it
comunicazione@adicorbetta.org


* The Biennale project is published on new Stefano Cagol's monograph titled PUBLIC OPINION (Charta, ISBN 978-88-8158-820-6), containing essays by Iara Boubnova, Gregor Jansen, Michele Robecchi, Andrea Viliani, and an interview by the artist to more than twenty curators.
The monograph – curated by Andera Viliani – has been realized by Fondazione Galleria Civica-Center of Research on Contemporaneity of Trento in the context of the project Opera Civica (TN), 2010-11, which has been made thanks to the support of the Provincia autonoma di Trento.

For press inquiries, images, interviews, please, contact:
comunicazione@adicorbetta.org

> On September 13, 6 pm, the monograph will be presented at Fondazione Galleria Civica of Trento.