Gabriele Garavaglia
selected works
Swiss Art Awards 2022
Eviction 2022 Wood Ice blue plexiglas Flood Lights Mail Inkjet on A4 paper Variable dimensions
Installation view
Top: detail keyhole
Detail warm light and letters passing under the fake wall
Arsenic Centre d’art Scénique in Lausanne
Drop Shadow 2021 Sfx silicone mask Magnesite Climbing equipment Performer Living work
A demon-like figure sits on a tree staring down at you. It looks like caring about the planet earth. It’s not easy to tell if she/he is there to protect us or rather is bad news; if prodigy or a danger. Allies provide the tree dweller with food and other provisions. Meanwhile, the demon drops leaves on passersby.
Top: excerpt from the press release
Installation view at the Arsenic’s courtyard
Demon in action
Sentiment Zurich
Bag Of Hurt 2021 Fake wall Front door Doorbell Vinyl numbers Carpet RGB flood lights Laptop Performer Hat Flashlight Variable dimensions Durational
(1)
Exhibition text by Alessandro Bava Poster by Schott Benzel
(1) Bag of Hurt
Installation view
Top: exhibition map
Active electronic doorbell
Top: street view at night
Living element: https://youtu.be/EKYJox2VAJ0
Istituto Svizzero Roma
Fook Moon Photographic series 2020 Digital C-type print Aluminium frame 42x28 cm each
Installation view at Istituto Svizzero
Detail photography
Gabriele Garavaglia’s photo series Fook Moon (2020) is based on previous performances of his, and shows portraits of human-like creatures whose eyes, however, seem incredibly inhuman.
Gioia Dal Molin Excerpt from the press release
Detail photography
Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève
Furlough 2020 With Miriam Laura Leonardi 4K-Film and sound Led stripes Immersive 4’02” loop
Video: https://vimeo.com/434283854 Password: furlough2020
In a deserted town, an aircraft pilot forced to ground, his lover and a third anonymous aerial participant, meet behind the erotic fences of a forbidden park. Compelled to stay within their own four walls, they decide to break the protocol and by trespassing what is usually common ground they appropriate the abandoned public space as if it was their own, an intimate and boundless wild place to venture into. Observed from an external technological and remote eye which seemingly tries to interact with them, although inapt of any physical contact, the couple is making out on the mowed lawn. While she disarrays his official uniform a bird discloses on her chest. Furlough is a government imposed temporary layoff.
Top: press release
Installation view at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève
Kunsthalle Zurich
Redneck Nightmare 2020 Loud speakers Sound effect Fake butterflies Variable dimensions 30’ loop
Sound: https://www.soundsnap.com/efx_ext_jet_by_fast_04_wav
Installation view speaker 1
GG: I was interested in the idea of a sound that rips through the sky, from left to right, which anticipates something happening elsewhere, maybe not too far away, like breaking news. You might visualize for a second the shadow of a fighter jet passing by the large glass facade of the Kunsthalle. DB: A strange foreign body up there. it made me think about how sound can measure space, How it works like an alternative way of thinking about dimensions, and passing through a space while at the same time transgressing and/or ignoring it.
Eexcerpt from an email exchange with curator Daniel Baumann
Top: Installation view speaker 2 and 3
Museum Haus Konstruktiv
Ultimo impero 2019 Red neon Flickering device 170x160 cm
Fook Moon 2019 Hand painted lenses sclera lenses Outfit Performers Living work
Detail custom lenses on museum guard
Top: flickering neon
Installation view and performance
Swiss Art Awards 2019
Inner Resistance 2019 Sfx prosthetic makeup Outfit Specific walk Performer Livinig work
Scenes around messe Basel
Top: detail prosthetics on hands
The Jury was having lunch when the zombie turned up. He came out of nowhere and walked through the exhibition site. His suit enveloped everything save his hands and face, both in an advanced state of decay. A tenacious, unfathomable instinct brought the zombie to the exhibition. Here, his presence exuded an undefined yet existential otherness. Then he disappeared. Gabriele Garavaglia’s presentation is not a performance but rather an intervention in our perception. His works allow the deepfake to intrude into reality, making the untrue an incontestable fact. Inner Resistance is enduringly unsettling, because the work refuses to be categorised within our everyday experience, shaped as it is by communication media, sensational news and consumer promises.
Text by the Jury
Kunsthaus Glarus
Fook Moon 2019 White mesh contact lenses Red lights Group of local young artists performing Living work
Performers at the opening
Detail of the white mesh contact lenses
Swiss Art Awards 2018
Back To Default 2018 Computer generated image on vinyl Sportive car 451.9x185.2x130 cm
In occasion of the 2018 swiss art awards, I designed a custom vinyl wrap for a sports car, a Porsche 911 parked in front of the exhibition space at the back of art Basel. The car-wrap is inspired by luxury cars abandoned in the city by their owner following financial ruin. Winning or losing gets a further twist as it is all staged: the dust is printed, the car is the very latest model, everything can be seen as a smart move or a dandy’s caprice.
Installation view at Messe Basel
Top: note by the artist
Detail CGI image simulating dust