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STEFANO CAGOL
(b. 1969 in Trento, Italy. Lives and works in Trento.)
Stefano Cagol (Trento, 1969) graduated from the Accademia di Brera in Milan and received a post-doctoral fellowship at Ryerson University in Toronto. His works, often multi-form and multi-sited, reflect on the issues of nowadays, from borders to viruses, to ecological issues and human interference upon nature. He is the recipient of prestigious awards including: the Italian Council (2019); the Visit of Innogy Stiftung (2014); and Terna Prize for Contemporary Art (2009). He participated in numerous international Biennales, including: 14th Curitiba Biennial, Brazil (2019-20); OFF Biennale Cairo, Egypt (2018); Manifesta 11, Zurich, Switzerland, (2016); and the 2nd Xinjiang Biennale, China (2014); 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013) invited by the Maldives Pavilion; 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2011) with a solo collateral event; 4th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2006); 1st Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2006). Cagol has held solo exhibitions at: CCA Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Israel; MA*GA Museum, Italy; at MARTa, Herford, Germany; CLB Berlin, Germany; ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany; MAXXI Museum in Rome, Italy; Madre, Naples, Italy; Museion in Bolzano, Italy; Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland; Museum Folkwang in Essen, amongst many others. Much of his work is created in the context of international residencies and fellowships, including: Italian Council, MOMENTUM AiR, Berlin, Germany (2019-20); Cambridge Sustainability Residency, Cambridge, UK (2016); RWE Foundation, MOMENTUM AiR, Berlin, Germany (2015); Air Bergen, Bergen, Norway (2014); Vir-Viafarini-in-Residence, Milan, Italy (2013); BAR International, Kirkenes, Norway (2010); International Studio and Curatorial Program ISCP, New York, USA (2010); International Center of Photography, New York, USA (2001).
The RWE Foundation VISIT program supported Cagol’s Artist Residency at MOMENTUM in 2015 and his year-long project culminated in his first solo show in Berlin inaugurating the new exhibition space CLB Collaboratorium Berlin. Stefano Cagol presented “The Body of Energy (of the mind)”, a year-long project the artist has developed as an expedition spanning Europe’s northern-most to southernmost tips, on search for signs of energy, both physical and cultural energy, triggering a reflection on what is not visible, on resources, on relations. In 2014-2015 Cagol’s solo project “The Body of Energy (of the mind)” was also presented at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, at Madre in Naples, at Maga in Gallarate, at Museion in Bolzano, at Kunsthalle St. Gallen, at ZKM in Karlsruhe and at Museum Folkwang in Essen.
READ MORE ABOUT STEFANO CAGOL’S 2015 ARTIST RESIDENCY AT MOMENTUM HERE > >
In 2019 Stefano Cagol was awarded the prestigious Italian Council grant for The Time of the Flood: Beyond the Myth through Climate Change. Cagol began his year-long international artistic research initiative in Berlin with a Residency at MOMENTUM on 1 November 2019 – 10 February 2020, producing three new video works, a number of performative interventions throughout the city, countless photographs, several Art Salon presentations, and a symposium at the Italian Cultural Institute, Berlin. The overall project, The Time of the Flood (2020-21), is composed of 7 video performances realized by Stefano Cagol throughout a series of international artist residencies and exhibitions in Berlin, Venice, Rome, Vienna, and Tel-Aviv. Seeing art, science and myth in continuous dialogue, Cagol re-contextualizes the biblical story of The Flood within our current climate emergency and the devastating impacts we humans have upon our planet.
READ MORE ABOUT STEFANO CAGOL’S 2019-20 ARTIST RESIDENCY AT MOMENTUM HERE > >
“Symbols, metaphors, current topics, immediateness, stimulating, communicating, openness, multiple points of view. These are the key words to my relationship with the public. It couldn’t be any other way. The artwork is an opportunity to better understand our own time and future. It’s a sort of mission. In my account art is never closed in itself.”
[Stefano Cagol]
EVOKE PROVOKE (THE BORDER)
2011, Video, 17 min 35 sec
The love and hate that Cagol feels towards boundaries, both physical and mental, is at the root of this work created at Kirkenes, in the Arctic Circle, during one of the periods he spent abroad as an artist in residence.
The artist staged a series of emblematic actions that he filmed with a video camera. In total solitude, immersed in a fascinating but hostile nature, in conditions bordering on the extreme, like the place where the actions were carried out. For Cagol in this case the border is precisely the one between himself, his body and his mind, and the nature that surrounds him.
The setting seems to be cloaked in twilight, barely dispelling the darkness, and the temperature is 25 degrees below zero. In those frozen lands, he tries to communicate in one way or another, using different forms of signalling. He endeavours to modify the landscape, to light it up, to melt the snow with a flame, but every attempt at interaction is in vain.
The video was shown at the solo exhibition Concilio in the church of San Gallo, as a collateral event at the 54th Venice Biennale.
[Excerpted from Stefano Cagol Works 1995 | 2015]