A note of amazement and it all begins.
Natural elements in representations made in series, tell all the causes and effects that surround the mutation of the climate, in twenty works that I call “disappearing works”. With an ironic and slightly scratchy character, not unique, but which embraces landscapes in double movement.
Environmental issues are bread for his teeth, or rather for his works, spread over videos, photographs and installations. In fact these recall the works of the great masters of poor art.
Trento is his hometown and it is here that his career begins; among countless exhibitions, and the pinnacle of recognition at the Venice Biennale. Using natural phenomena for his works, in his first trips to New York since 1990, he made videos starring the American flag with stars and stripes as it flaps in the wind.
From 2000 to 2007 he began work that took him between the big cities: New York, Miami, Berlin and above all Tokyo.
One of the artist’s best-known exhibitions is called “The shape of the wind” where he almost creates witchcraft, placing side by side different scenarios, as antipodes as water and fire. Burning snow, clods of earth flying in the air, disappearing works.
Ice and fire in the place, at the same time? Exactly.
We find ourselves in solitude, in the cold and frost, the artist gets stuck in the frozen lands “Over Two Thousand” is the snow in flames, you read that right! The artist defies the laws of physics, an evocative work that brings together the forces of nature. The video was exhibited in the Church of San Galla, a collateral event of the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale.
From the Maldives to Venice
In 2013 the Maldives presented their pavilion at the Biennale for the first time. A small nation that now seems destined to disappear because it is submerged in waste, and also due to the rise in temperatures. The Maldives call 17 international artists to try their hand through their personal point of view, develop and work on artistic projects with a main theme: climate change.
Cagol presents his point of view entitled “The Ice Monolith” – a link between his homeland and the Maldives. He will be present, in fact, in pavilion 55 of the Venice Biennale.
We immerse ourselves in a walk along the Riva Cà di Dio where we come across a 1400kg block of ice, directly from the Trentino Alps. The block of ice was left there, for the next few days, dripping and melting before the eyes of passers-by, until it disappeared.
But why leave a block of ice to melt in the sun?
The purpose seems clear, leaving questions to all observing eyes; in reference to the Maldives, but to the world in general, but above all to the city that hosts it, the enchanting Venice! The artist wonders about the fate of this fabulous city, perhaps destined to disappear in the next 50 years.
On the same days, the artist will screen a video made in the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic Circle, the video shows the peaks of the mountains that emerge majestically from the water, and then disappear in it.
Environment, territory and culture = energy
The Body Of Energy – Art Performance
Cagol tells about everyday life, through an infrared camera, captures the traces that our human body leaves, with body temperature as a manifestation of energy. This trace has a symbolic and conceptual value, an imprint of a hand on a tree and so it happened that ‘for a few minutes it will remain there, as evidence of something that was there.
To better understand why Cagol uses video for his works, Bruce Nauman guides us, who exploited the medium (“the message without code” as McLuhan claimed) who used the video to tell and propose his performances, attributing to these a profound artistic value. A work that lasts over time, indelible.
The artistic work described above was awarded as one of the most innovative projects, between art, participation and the environment, shown at Expo 2015 in the Italian Pavilion.
The artist Cagol is working on many other projects and “disappearingworks”, we suggest you take a peek at his website, here.
