"Bird Flu: Stefano Cagol"
2006-03-21 until 2006-03-26
Kunstraum Innsbruck
Innsbruck, , AT Austria

Bird Flu by Stefano Cagol is “A physical and mental trip into the center of Europe, between real and unreal fears, physical and mental influences.” It’s a project that develops/moves in different cities and meaningful locations, between Trento and Berlin, and through media. The work is in progress; the movement foresees planned stops at Art Centers and Museums that take part in the project. The project put to a wide fruition a reflection about the contemporary mechanisms of influence, of exerting power and prestige, of the hypnotic persuasive means into everyday life. In particular the artist has created and diffuses a specific lexicon of the mental influences – the atavic ones and the typical of our time – through new associations of ideas between the “flu” term, in the meaning of influence, and the focal points of our actual society.

The couples of words are: Art Flu, Ass Flu, Politics Flu, Money Flu, Opinion Flu, TV Flu, Dead Flu, Love Flu, Tami Flu, Bird Flu, Star Flu, Peace Flu, Dog Flu, Toy Flu, Sex Flu, Techno Flu, Angel Flu, Boy Flu, War Flu, Religion Flu, Gun Flu, Pig Flu, Pussy Flu, Girl Flu

Since ours is the era of a communication which is increasingly daring, quick, immediate, simultaneous, global, communication has never been used to spread (and create) fears as nowadays. Television, the net, newspapers and real time news, the world vision of the destruction of the Towers, at each moment of our life we have been connected with the rest of the world, but at the same time every moment of our lives is ruled by what we are listening and seeing. To the point that we are infinitely more open to attacks, more easily influenced than when man lived his life detached from the rest of the Planet.

Related to this situation, the artist creates a study in-depth in order to underline the idea of an influence of power, prestige, media on our daily lives. And his intention is to do it by using the same communication means, by creating the case, by amplifying the information that bombs us every day and by throwing it back to people. That is why the project moves in the heart of Europe, directly within urban realities.

The project develops through the diffusion of this new lexicon, the virulent diffusion. The circulation of the project is part of it trough the movement and trough the distribution in every stop of a series of pins with the couples of words.

In the cities where the Museums and Art Space involved into the project are based, the artist presents the associations of ideas putting in guard against the dangerous and shifty influences, the mental not the physical ones: influences: the influence of money, of religion, and of Television. The extended public get involved by a white and aseptic truck parked in the metropolitan space in front of every art structure and meaningful place: on its sides are the big words “Bird Flu”, and a sound – between the irony and the real – of birds. And the action is developed through the diffusion of pins with the printed words, able to stamp, to underline the influences of the power points of the contemporary society into the individual life.

The project results of the action will be presented on a special web site at the address http://www.birdfluartifice.com, and by the Art Spaces.

Stefano Cagol was born in Trento, Italy in 1969. He lived in Bern for ten years and in Milan for five, now he lives between Italy and a continuous movement/research abroad. He studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan and at Ryerson University in Toronto. He exhibited his work in solo shows at Oredaria, Rome and at Platform, London in 2005, at Stefan Stux (project room), New York in 2004, at Mart – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Rovereto in 2000. Then he realized the performance/action White Flags at the opening of the Venice Biennale in 2005 and the work in progress Tokyospace in Tokyo in 2004. His further solo project is in Tokyo at the Italian Cultural Institute in Autumn 2006.

His video, photographs, installations and performances are part of a research about the social and political issues, the changed point of view, the mutated values system, the altered balances of our actual society. He investigates that themes through the transformations of contemporary metropolises.

] Bird Flu [ by Stefano Cagol, powered by Kunstraum, Innsbruck, Museion - Museum für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst, Bozen, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Austria

Other Important Exhibitions in Austria