15 Apr 2010

POWER OF RECALL public art installation by Stefano Cagol

POWER OF RECALL
A public art installation by Stefano Cagol
'A monument for Vicenza, for people of Vicenza… beyond Palladio'
Curated by Iara Boubnova
Presentation of the catalogue: April 19, 7 pm

The insallation is always on view on the facade of Palazzo degli Uffici, Piazza dei Signori, Vicenza, Italy
March 8 – May 8, 2010

' ... Thus Stefano Cagol is activating a process of collective and/or private cultural association hoping that the chain of free association will lead the viewer out and away from the framework of the actually existing names that have started it all. In the city of Vicenza, in the heartland of the High Renaissance, one artist who is implicated by birth in the European cultural tradition seems to be rejecting the notion of art as a window out into the world. Stefano Cagol insists that art is a system of communicative knots, a kind of semantic integral, which is revealed in the visual while the artist is an operator of signs (after Nicolas Bourriaud) whose main quality is to be adept in the discourse of serving the community.

Stefano Cagol's multilayered, omnipotent and mixed-media concept understands history not as a reservation with restricted access but as a wave of energy, which is gathering ever more strength due to the constant incorporation of newer and newer particles. ' (extract)

Iara Boubnova

Download the catalogue with the essay (Pdf file, 6 Mb):
www.poterediricordare.com/power_of_recall.pdf

Stefano Cagol has conceived an installation specifically for Vicenza that focuses on concepts of individual and collective memory, of belonging, of recognition, of stratification, of identity.
The ideal starting point is the identification of Vicenza through the definition given her of 'city of Palladio.'
By going beyond the present binomial, the artwork highlights how the identity of the territory has not been flattened but stratified and brings back to memory not only a long list of names bound to past history but to the city itself as it is nowadays. It gives back, in this way, an equally shared portrait, which becomes facetted, multiform, unofficial, unexpected, and in continuous evolution.
Aligned with the idea of a public shared memory, the artist has drawn from a long list of people from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, written by its users. That is how recognition and strengthening mechanisms are stressed by official history and by common memory. That is why the title 'Power of recall' refers to the ability of remembering: a world not only of numbers but of people.
The interaction with the city continues in-progress into the direct involvement of the observers through a public survey. An open call pages of local newspapers updates the list asking to citizen to send by e-mail new names to be inserted in the list, filled relevant for them, for the past and actual life of the city.
The list runs uninterruptedly on a LED display, normally used for general information.

Stefano Cagol was born in Trento, South Tyrol, Italy in 1969. Studied in Bern, Milan and Toronto and actually lives and works in Italy and Brussels. He won the TERNA PRIZE 02 and will be artist in residence at ISCP, New York in 2010: ISCP Open Studios, May 6 - 16, 2010.

For participating in-progress:
www.fondazionevignato.it or www.ilgiornaledivicenza.it
Recall and propose the names you feel important for Vicenza!
The selection will become part of the installation.

In collaboration with: Il Giornale di Vicenza
With the support of: the Municipality of Vicenza, the Province of Vicenza and the Region of Veneto

Press Office: Art Flu - info@art-flu.com