Story and Photographs by Richard Nahem, Eye Prefer Paris CorrespondentNew York artist Vincent Gagliostro has done it all. He’s successfully worked as an art director, graphic designer, and video artist. He’s also art directed two music videos by Prince (Diamonds and Pearls, and Cream). Five years ago, Gagliostro moved to Paris to focus on drawing, painting and making films. He’s at work on his first feature film, After Louie.
In his new installation, Gagliostro actually “testifies” against himself. “(1) case” is the title of Gagliostro’s “table of evidence” — literally a table — which is the vantage point where the public enters the installation. The text at the entrance clearly states the experience guests are about to encounter:
What is falling in love? He is a god in my eyes – the man who is allowed to sit beside you – he who listens intimately to the sweet murmur of your voice, the enticing laughter that makes my own heart beat fast. If I meet you suddenly, I can’t speak – my tongue is broken; a thin flame runs under my skin; seeing nothing, hearing only my own ears drumming, I drip with sweat; trembling shakes my body and I turn paler than dry grass. At such times death isn’t far from me. — (Sappho)
Employing the strategies similar to an investigative reporter or detective, Gagliostro gathers ‘evidence’ that delineates a landscape of themes, with narrative that points towards the cause of his behavior, and the actions and desires that define him as a gay man in modern society. The objects and subjects on display, self-introduced as admissible evidence — drawings, notebooks, photographs, documents, video — expose his “compulsive desire to flirt with the subject as object and to fall in love with said subject.” With self-referential and self-conscience poetic aspirations, Gagliostro objectifies his subjects. “I not only all in love with the subject as object but I fall in love with the falling in love,” says the artist. “The human aspect pulls me in and the newly created object becomes the subject of my desire. The tension that is present is that the ‘objects’ are human.”
A series of portraits remind the view of the time-honored tradition of muse as subject. Gagliostro’s unflinching honesty, a fessing up of sorts, his willingness to turn self-witness, along with a seeking to know himself, goes beyond the mere confessional. He carries the burden of proof. Gagliostro boldly and courageously speaks from the human heart, which for him, speaks to, and of, our shared human condition.
Vincent Gagliostro:
(1)case
Opening October 21, 18h – 21h
From October 21st to November 22nd, 2010
Films: FALLING 1&2 | Painting. Drawing. Objects
Galerie NeC | 20 rue des Coutures Saint-Gervais Paris 75003
gagliostro@mac.com |www. gagliostro.com
galerienec@gmail.com
