Exhibitions, Italy, Milano, 05 March 2014
It seems reasonable, since the art of copying nature, and man can create different robots that move without thinking, that nature must produce their own robots, much more perfect than artificial ones. These automata are natural animals.
(Descartes )
The Format - Contemporary Culture Gallery is pleased to present: The day after the fift, the first exhibition by Federica Cogo in Milan, curated by Daniele De Luigi.
Federica Cogo presents a selection of works on paper, paintings and videos.
Opening March 5, 2014 at 6pm.
Much of the recent research by the young artist Federica Cogo focuses on the relationship between man and animal. Among the many features of schizophrenia that characterize contemporary society, this is without doubt one of the most obvious ones, and in the short and ironic video, made as a promo of the show, a small dog is considerately washed with shower gel, makes for an effective introduction. Without any sense of contradiction, as pointed out by the expert in animal bioethics Barbara De Mori, slaughtering and xenografts coexist with pet therapy and wellness centers for our four-legged friends. This is what Paul Taylor has called the era of bioculture, in which the animal is used by man for his own purposes, which in some cases involve affection and care, while others provide for the suffering and death, but always from our point of view and applying hierarchies entirely subjective. The central problem is the inability of man to conceive the animal as a sentient being with its specific needs, and to wonder about their responsibilities and unilateral exercise of his own superiority.
Federica Cogo addresses exactly this issue, and does so with a subtle and refined work that does emerge, the room darkened and soundproof which is kept hidden from the consumer society, the cruelty of which we are capable. Her work moves from pre-existing images, whether photographs or video vernacular textbook on the network. Artists have started a long time to come to terms with the accumulation of images that characterizes the contemporary world, feeling the need to interrogatein order to understand through visual reflections, how they construct our way of thinking. The dialectic that arises, characteristic of the artistic contemporary, is the preservation of standards of judgment, the embalming of memory, the preservation of the stereotypes propagated by most of the images, and the attempt to undermine the system by altering the meaning of the perception of images and revealing mechanisms. Federica Cogo using sweetened but cold technical illustrations, taken from books on husbandry, makes them pleasantly decorative or where she has found video in which man perpetrates unnecessary suffering on animals, she is patient using a technique of translating the movie into animation - maintaiing the original sound - to give it a playful aspect, seemingly innocent. In this way, she obliges us to look carefully at the images that would leave us indifferent to their banality, or on the contrary, would reject with disgust or discomfort. Its purpose is to reveal the dark side of the antromorphication of animals: its reification. To ask oneself about this process, which has continued through the history of Western civilization from Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, to Descartes, actually means questioning man: who we are and our image, our species and the alleged "insuperable border" ( Jeremy Bentham ) that separates us from the others. Because as Milan Kundera wrote, "the true moral test of humanity, the fundamental test is the relationship with those who are at its mercy: animals. And therein lies the fundamental failure of man, so fundamental that all others stem from it."
Federica Cogo (1985 ) graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona, the city where she still lives and works. In 2011 she exhibited at the gallery neutral pH of Verona. In 2012 she was among the finalists for the Celeste Prize winning second prize in the video Untitled # 1. In 2013 , she won the Special Prize Art Residence in Beijing in collaboration with Arte Laguna Lab - Yit . During his residency she exhibited in the group exhibition From painting to animation at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing and the staff Pollution by Cecilia Freschini. In the same year she was selected by JCE - Jeune Création Européenne to represent her country at the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Montrouge (France) and subsequently in various European cities until 2015, as an emerging artistic talent in Italy.
https://www.theformatgallery.com/
(Descartes )
The Format - Contemporary Culture Gallery is pleased to present: The day after the fift, the first exhibition by Federica Cogo in Milan, curated by Daniele De Luigi.
Federica Cogo presents a selection of works on paper, paintings and videos.
Opening March 5, 2014 at 6pm.
Much of the recent research by the young artist Federica Cogo focuses on the relationship between man and animal. Among the many features of schizophrenia that characterize contemporary society, this is without doubt one of the most obvious ones, and in the short and ironic video, made as a promo of the show, a small dog is considerately washed with shower gel, makes for an effective introduction. Without any sense of contradiction, as pointed out by the expert in animal bioethics Barbara De Mori, slaughtering and xenografts coexist with pet therapy and wellness centers for our four-legged friends. This is what Paul Taylor has called the era of bioculture, in which the animal is used by man for his own purposes, which in some cases involve affection and care, while others provide for the suffering and death, but always from our point of view and applying hierarchies entirely subjective. The central problem is the inability of man to conceive the animal as a sentient being with its specific needs, and to wonder about their responsibilities and unilateral exercise of his own superiority.
Federica Cogo addresses exactly this issue, and does so with a subtle and refined work that does emerge, the room darkened and soundproof which is kept hidden from the consumer society, the cruelty of which we are capable. Her work moves from pre-existing images, whether photographs or video vernacular textbook on the network. Artists have started a long time to come to terms with the accumulation of images that characterizes the contemporary world, feeling the need to interrogatein order to understand through visual reflections, how they construct our way of thinking. The dialectic that arises, characteristic of the artistic contemporary, is the preservation of standards of judgment, the embalming of memory, the preservation of the stereotypes propagated by most of the images, and the attempt to undermine the system by altering the meaning of the perception of images and revealing mechanisms. Federica Cogo using sweetened but cold technical illustrations, taken from books on husbandry, makes them pleasantly decorative or where she has found video in which man perpetrates unnecessary suffering on animals, she is patient using a technique of translating the movie into animation - maintaiing the original sound - to give it a playful aspect, seemingly innocent. In this way, she obliges us to look carefully at the images that would leave us indifferent to their banality, or on the contrary, would reject with disgust or discomfort. Its purpose is to reveal the dark side of the antromorphication of animals: its reification. To ask oneself about this process, which has continued through the history of Western civilization from Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, to Descartes, actually means questioning man: who we are and our image, our species and the alleged "insuperable border" ( Jeremy Bentham ) that separates us from the others. Because as Milan Kundera wrote, "the true moral test of humanity, the fundamental test is the relationship with those who are at its mercy: animals. And therein lies the fundamental failure of man, so fundamental that all others stem from it."
Federica Cogo (1985 ) graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona, the city where she still lives and works. In 2011 she exhibited at the gallery neutral pH of Verona. In 2012 she was among the finalists for the Celeste Prize winning second prize in the video Untitled # 1. In 2013 , she won the Special Prize Art Residence in Beijing in collaboration with Arte Laguna Lab - Yit . During his residency she exhibited in the group exhibition From painting to animation at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing and the staff Pollution by Cecilia Freschini. In the same year she was selected by JCE - Jeune Création Européenne to represent her country at the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Montrouge (France) and subsequently in various European cities until 2015, as an emerging artistic talent in Italy.
https://www.theformatgallery.com/
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