Roberto Cuoghi is the winner of the XXVII edition of the Pino Pascali Prize. The Modenese artist will receive the award at the opening of a solo exhibition dedicated to him, scheduled for Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Fondazione Pino Pascali in Polignano a Mare.
The award, one of the longest-running in the Italian scene, was established in 1969 by the parents of Pino Pascali, an artist from Puglia who died prematurely in 1968 in a car accident. After an initial historical phase that saw it awarded to leading figures of the contemporary scene, it was suspended and then resumed in 1998, with the aim of keeping alive the dialogue with national and international artistic research.
“Roberto Cuoghi’s work focuses on the relationship between the individual and society, which makes it particularly relevant and worthy by fostering a dialogue between art and socio-anthropological aspects,” reads the motivation for the award. “The artist puts at the center of his research the metamorphic theme declined through the use of different artistic forms, such as sculpture, painting, sound, installation; the multidisciplinary work and the ability to oscillate through transformations are indicators of Roberto Cuoghi’s proximity to the work of Pino Pascali.”
Over the decades the award has welcomed among its recipients names that have marked the history of contemporary art. In the first season, artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Vettor Pisani, Maurizio Mochetti, Vincenzo Agnetti and Luca Maria Patella were honored. In more recent years, the prize has taken on a different physiognomy, aimed particularly at mid-career artists capable of consolidating their path on an international scale. Examples of this are the awards given to Jan Fabre, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Nathalie Djurberg, Hans Op de Beck, Ibrahim Mahama and Christiane Löhr, up to the Italians Francesco Arena and Nico Vascellari, winners of the last editions.
The decision to award the prize to Roberto Cuoghi fits into this line of continuity. Born in Modena in 1973, Cuoghi has established himself as one of the most singular and difficult to classify personalities on the contemporary scene. His career has reached international milestones: in 2017 he participated in the 57. Venice Biennale, in the Italian Pavilion entitled The Magic World and curated by Cecilia Alemani, together with Giorgio Andreotta Calò and Adelita Husni-Bey. On that occasion Cuoghi presented the work Imitation of Christ, which helped confirm his centrality in the artistic debate of those years. Other important moments in his career include the solo exhibition at the Fridericianum in Kassel and the retrospective Perla Pollina 1996-2016, a project articulated between the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva and the Madre Museum in Naples, which traced 20 years of his production.
Cuoghi’s practice is characterized by a radical approach, far from direct schools or influences. Each project represents for him a ground for technical and conceptual experimentation, where the creative process becomes an integral part of the work. The artist develops novel methodologies, often conceived specifically for each series, with a handcrafted control that leaves no room for improvisation. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Cuoghi has never consolidated a recognizable style: his works, profoundly different from one cycle to the next, range between different media and languages, without fixing themselves in a univocal definition.
His freedom from pre-established codes has led several critics to call him one of the most radical artists of his generation. Among them Alessandro Rabottini, who has written how Cuoghi eludes easy categorizations, identifying in this characteristic one of the distinctive elements of his research. The exhibition set up at the Fondazione Pino Pascali provides an opportunity to document and explore the work the artist has developed over the past decade. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with two galleries of reference for Cuoghi, Chantal Crousel and Hauser & Wirth, which have followed and supported his evolution over the years.
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| Roberto Cuoghi wins the XXVII edition of the Pino Pascali Prize |
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