Roberto Cuoghi

Roberto Cuoghi was born in Modena in 1973 and currently lives and works in Milan. Intrigued by experimentation, he often uses the body in his artistic practice to interpret transformations of the self and others. This idea did not initially emerge as an artistic performance but stemmed from a more intimate and private need.

The collection features four works created using different techniques: F(XIXR)i is a photographic portrait from 2009 of American musician Arto Lindsay, a key figure in the 'No Wave' movement and son of Presbyterian missionaries. After getting to know each other and spending time together, personal confessions inspired the idea of immortalizing the musician as a martyr for avoiding the throwing of a mascarpone and berry tart, thus entirely indifferent to the effects of a shotgun blast to the face.

The second work is a diptych, D+P(XIXA)mm, featuring two evanescent images that gaze at one another, from which an self-portrait of the artist emerges. Through this work, Cuoghi depicts how he might have become had he not pursued the path of art—perhaps “a gang member, a toothless man, a mute monster, a man still living with his mother, a modern saint, or a pretentious intellectual.”

The sculpture encountered along the corridors of the Law Firm is SS(VIZ)c, created in 2012, marking the artist's first ceramic sculpture. It represents the Babylonian god Pazuzu, for which the artist created a life-size enlargement in 2008, starting from a scan of the original amulet housed at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Entangled in his anatomy through the crossing and fusion of his face seven times, the demon Pazuzu is here embarrassed once again in his role as an amulet. The principle of immanence is under scrutiny, as the spirit of the demon penetrates the substance of each of its representations. By signaling the flaw at the origin, the anatomical alteration obstructs the incarnation of the idol, and consequently, the spirit’s assimilation to the properties of the object— a perforated ceramic, whose matter is therefore partially absent.

Recently added to the collection is a unique work, carefully kept on the collector's desk, SS(LXVP)c, which represents a small claw, embodying complex poetry, resulting from the artist's ceramic skills and part of the Putiferio series. The name derives from the project of the same name presented on the island of Hydra on June 20, 2016, at the Deste Foundation Project Space. This project represented an opportunity for Roberto to experiment with new techniques of firing and coloring ceramics. He continued to produce works from the Putiferio series until 2019.