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MOMENTUM AiR
Stefano Cagol
1 November 2019 – 7 February 2020
The Time of the Flood: Beyond the Myth through Climate Change
The Time of the Flood: Beyond the Myth through Climate Change, Stefano Cagol’s year-long international artistic research initiative, began in Berlin on 1st November 2019. By the time Cagol completed his Artist Residency at MOMENTUM on 10th February 2020, he had produced three new video works, a number of performative interventions throughout the city, countless photographs, several Art Salon presentations, a symposium at the Italian Cultural Institute, Berlin – and the world had irrevocably turned upside down. Cagol developed his concept for Time of the Flood long before the first cases of COVID-19 were registered in Germany in January 2020. His concept, to re-contextualize the biblical story of the Flood within our current climate emergency, remains a crucial and timely reflection on the devastating impacts we humans have on our planet. Yet who could have imagined at the start of this project just how prophetic and timely it would prove to be? Man’s pervasive impacts upon nature – whether in the form of global warming resulting in melting glaciers and rising sea levels, or the unleashing of new deadly viruses – has been a persistent focus throughout Cagol’s practice, from his ongoing series of FLU projects begun in 1988 following the first outbreak of Bird Flu in Asia in 1987, to his melting Ice Monolith at the Venice Biennale in 2013, up to the many issues raised by Time of the Flood. What began as a reflection upon the intersections of art, ecology, and technology, acquired an even greater urgency in being realized amidst a global pandemic. The Time of the Flood travelled after Berlin to Rome, Venice, Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. That Cagol was able to continue his multi-city project despite persistent travel restrictions and institutional closures, is simply remarkable. That he did so not only during the continued escalation in climactic catastrophes, with deadly floods, fires, and storms raging throughout the world – but also at the time of the greatest global public health emergency of recent history, is indicative of the urgent relevance of his work in our seemingly apocalyptic times. It was our great privilege to host Stefano Cagol at MOMENTUM and to nurture the first steps of The Time of the Flood, with thanks to the Italian Council and all the cultural partners in this project.
– Rachel Rits-Volloch
BIO
Stefano Cagol (Trento, 1969) graduated from the Accademia di Brera in Milan and received a post-doctoral fellowship from the Government of Canada at Ryerson University in Toronto.
In 2019 he holds a solo show at MA*GA Art Museum in Gallarate, participates in the exhibition Writing the History of the Future at ZKM in Karlsruhe and in the Curitiba Biennale. He took part in the 2nd OFF Biennale Cairo, Manifesta 11, 55th Venice Biennale and 1st Singapore Biennale. Among the awards, he is recipient of the Visit # 10 of Innogy Foundation and the Terna Prize for Contemporary Art #2.
THE TIME OF THE FLOOD.
Beyond the myth through climate change
Italian artist Stefano Cagol has chosen Momentum as his project partner for “THE TIME OF THE FLOOD. Beyond the myth through climate change”, a residency project lasting 10 months from November 2019 to August 2020 located in different cities, Berlin, Tel Aviv / Jerusalem, Rome and Venice, which will give life in progress to wide-ranging results.
The first phase of the project starts in Berlin on November 1, 2019, where Stefano Cagol will be in residence for three months at the artist residency of Momentum in Prenzlauer Berg.
Cultural partner is the IIFCA Italy-Israel Foundation for Culture and the Arts. Project supported by the Italian Council (6th Edition, 2019) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity and Urban Regeneration of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
Art, science, myth. Starting from a symbolic image like the universal flood, in the project “THE TIME OF THE FLOOD. Beyond the myth through climate change” Stefano Cagol will address global issues such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, the disappearance of glaciers, the mutation of winds, energy flows, opening a new scenario within his research that for years addresses the different pieces of the complex relationship of imbalance with nature. It is those phenomena – defined as “hyperobjects” by the philosopher Timothy Morton – that we do not always see, but are already in front of our eyes, that strike all, hyperdiffused, but at the same time are difficult to grasp, changeable, multiform, inconstant. Just as water, currents, winds, heat, energy and their reactions to anthropogenic interferences can be considered.
The artist takes a clear cue from the moment we are living, «We monitor what is happening around us like never before, yet our relationship with nature has never escaped us as much as now,» explains Cagol. He describes the residence as «a journey of research towards the genesis of the concept of the universal flood”, and concludes “Maybe a mode of purification. Certainly a thought on the most precious goods: water and energy. A mystical and global theme at the same time.”
The project starts from an articulated period of residence and the collaboration with Rachel Rits-Volloch, founder of Momentum, and with Giorgia Calò, curator and part of the IIFCA Italy-Israel Foundation for Culture and the Arts, aiming at giving life to multiform developments, based on the continuous research of the interaction in progress with other institutions, museums, cities, artists, scientists and curators, as well as with the widest possible audience, including public presentations, workshops and participative performances, as examples of an “activist aesthetic”, as Jeni Fulton defines Stefano Cagol’s practice. His art is an experience of knowledge, a critical look at the world, capable of constantly questioning the viewer and reacting to what is about to happen.
Stefano Cagol with the project THE TIME OF THE FLOOD. Beyond the myth through climate change won the 6th edition of the Italian Council (2019) promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity and Urban Regeneration of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, selected by a committee composed of Bartomeu Marí Ribas, director of MALI – Museo de Arte de Lima; Marco Scotini, director of the department of Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA; Claudio Varagnoli, architect and lecturer at the University of Chieti; Angela Vettese, art historian, critic and lecturer at the IUAV in Venice.
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