Francesco Cagnin & Sam Porritt
Plan for the Worst, Hope for the Best
Opening: 16.02.24 from 17:00
16.02.24 – 27.04.24
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Francesco Cagnin and Sam Porritt are bent on understanding meaning-making and investigating thought systems be it the sociology of culture (agency, ethics, everyday life) or topics related to semiotics (how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated). For the upcoming exhibition Cagnin is interested in doing so through an articulation on the privileged and safeguarded life, exploring word play, the grid, and the cause-and-effect scenarios of the “Schadenskizzen” advertisements by die Mobiliar. Porritt is ongoingly absorbed by the individual or collective will to engage and what it takes to raise a voice against all odds. Testing the limits of the sensical, Porritt has been examining the attention-grabbing potential of the graphical symbol of the arrow. Triggering thoughts on rationality, order and truth, the exhibition points our attention to language and logics of perception with the artists sensing and scrutinizing in each their own idiosyncratic ways.
What does it mean to stake a claim? How does (survival) anxiety affect behavior? What kind of architectures of dread exist? How does fear and paranoia affect society? Herd mentality as a flight response as portrayed in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and Bradburry’s Fahrenheit 451 seem like relevant sources to revisit in moments of crisis. Roland Barthes makes a point about finding a way to act amidst polarizing situations in his theory of the neutral. Writer Maggie Nelson paraphrases it well and thinks of a possible approach: “[that] in the face of dogmatism, the menacing pressure to take sides, offer novel responses: to flee, to escape, to demur, to shift or refuse terms, to disengage, to turn away.”
Francesco Cagnin
Born in 1988 outside of Venice, Italy, Francesco Cagnin moved to Switzerland in 2014 to further his studies at ECAL in Lausanne, followed by the SOMA residency program in Mexico City and the Stiftung Sitterwerk residency in St. Gallen. He has shown widely throughout Europe, including Fondation Ricard in Paris, Shoefrog in Vienna, Kunsthalle Zurich, Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, 16 Quadriennale in Roma, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venezia. Cagnin lives and works in Zurich. Recent exhibitions in Switzerland include Swiss Art Awards (2023), Lighthaus (2022), flatmarkus (2022).
Sam Porritt
Born in London in 1979, Sam Porritt studied sculpture at Chelsea School of Art before completing his postgraduate degree in 2005 at the Royal Academy Schools, London. He has been living and working in Zurich since 2010. His work has been included in exhibitions in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America and is held in private and public collections worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include: Saint Martin Bookshop, Brussels, VITRINE, Basel, Indiana, Vevey, Circuit, Lausanne. Recent group exhibitions include: Art Forum Baloise Park, Basel, Villa Bernasconi, Geneva, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Kunsthalle Zurich, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, CAN, Neuchatel, MONA, Tasmania, The South London Gallery, Gana Art Gallery, Seoul.