2007
Ewiges Abendland
Solo show
Galerie Mark Müller
Galerie Mark Müller
Januar 12 – Februar 23, 2007
Zürich
Zürich
Ewiges Abendland is an evocative title for the exhibition. Eternity implies an understanding of unlimited time, while the Occident refers to something both past and historically and geographically confined. Abendland is the original German designation for Europe, as it lies in the west, where the sun sets.
Giacomo Santiago Rogado’s exhibition reads like poetry. It speaks of the past, of the old, of things steeped in history, while at the same time carrying within it the new, the here and now. Poetry here also means an acknowledgement that what moves us can hardly be captured in words or images: something delicate, subtle, quiet and barely perceptible, scarcely expressible. Rogado’s work can also be described as poetic in the original sense of the word: as a field of works created through artistic skill.
Through his work, he writes a poetry entirely his own, one that shifts between abstraction and figuration in a dynamic interplay and reciprocity, thereby giving it an individual language and temporality. Yesterday encounters today, drawing encounters painting, colour encounters colourlessness. Accordingly, the exhibition Eternal Occident reveals itself in great diversity. It ranges from powerful spectacles of colour and form to quiet works reduced to just a few colours.
For Rogado, painting is a consciously employed mediator of emotions. This is evident not only in abstract forms, but also in familiar terms or motifs such as the heart, the pulse, a horizon or clouds. The large-scale works are demanding and absorbing in their interplay of motifs, forms and gradations of colour. Correspondences and repetitions emerge, and connections begin to reveal themselves. The juxtaposition, superimposition and coexistence of elements function not only as a repository for colour and form, but equally as a repository for memories, thoughts and stories.
Giacomo Santiago Rogado’s exhibition reads like poetry. It speaks of the past, of the old, of things steeped in history, while at the same time carrying within it the new, the here and now. Poetry here also means an acknowledgement that what moves us can hardly be captured in words or images: something delicate, subtle, quiet and barely perceptible, scarcely expressible. Rogado’s work can also be described as poetic in the original sense of the word: as a field of works created through artistic skill.
Through his work, he writes a poetry entirely his own, one that shifts between abstraction and figuration in a dynamic interplay and reciprocity, thereby giving it an individual language and temporality. Yesterday encounters today, drawing encounters painting, colour encounters colourlessness. Accordingly, the exhibition Eternal Occident reveals itself in great diversity. It ranges from powerful spectacles of colour and form to quiet works reduced to just a few colours.
For Rogado, painting is a consciously employed mediator of emotions. This is evident not only in abstract forms, but also in familiar terms or motifs such as the heart, the pulse, a horizon or clouds. The large-scale works are demanding and absorbing in their interplay of motifs, forms and gradations of colour. Correspondences and repetitions emerge, and connections begin to reveal themselves. The juxtaposition, superimposition and coexistence of elements function not only as a repository for colour and form, but equally as a repository for memories, thoughts and stories.
With his paintings, Rogado succeeds in setting the longing for times past, alongside the predominance of the present, into a constant and uncertain movement. The portraits, painted from old photographs, evoke bygone times, while the vests become windows into the present, opening a nostalgic view towards the clouds. The figures’ gazes wander enigmatically into somewhere unknown, or perhaps inward, as though they knew of the piece of sky they carry within themselves—silently, like a secret.
Yet much can be sensed: whether it is the relativity of our existence, revealed in the nothingness of the bodies and in the melancholy of the entire mise-en-scène, or the sense of the incomprehensible vastness of our inner world of thought, which is reflected in the figures’ gazes and manifests itself upon their chests.
As viewers, we always create our own reality. Experience, imagination and memory constitute perception and its comprehension. With this in mind, Giacomo Santiago Rogado wants the imaginary and imagination to be understood as part of his pictorial reality. It is sensory perception that his works speak of: of sensations, aesthetic experiences, and the ways in which these can be preserved, ultimately in order to do one thing again and again: to pause for a brief moment.
Angelika Ritter, Yasmin Afschar
Yet much can be sensed: whether it is the relativity of our existence, revealed in the nothingness of the bodies and in the melancholy of the entire mise-en-scène, or the sense of the incomprehensible vastness of our inner world of thought, which is reflected in the figures’ gazes and manifests itself upon their chests.
As viewers, we always create our own reality. Experience, imagination and memory constitute perception and its comprehension. With this in mind, Giacomo Santiago Rogado wants the imaginary and imagination to be understood as part of his pictorial reality. It is sensory perception that his works speak of: of sensations, aesthetic experiences, and the ways in which these can be preserved, ultimately in order to do one thing again and again: to pause for a brief moment.
“It is about appearance, in its sensuous indeterminacy. It is not about recognising, defining and naming things. Rather, it is about lingering before the object and observing the sensory and significant event. (...) For perception may take place within a second, yet remain in one’s memory for an entire lifetime.”
(G. S. Rogado, “Das Eine ohne das Andere. Von der Destruktion einer Wahrnehmung”, 2004)
Angelika Ritter, Yasmin Afschar