ARTIST TALK: MARCO CASSANI

Nia S. Amira
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Arts and culture is a bond that can not be separated and have a very close relationship with one another. Human have such values and God will lead to make it perfect as masterpiece because hu­man want to achieve the highest goal in their works. Marco Cassani was born in Milan, Italia in 1981. This young Artist studied in Brera Academy of Art, Milan. At this time Marco works and lives both in Italy and Indonesia, the country of his beloved wife.

Cassani is a dynamism and an hon­est exotism artist if this could be used as material for those who are not easy to interpret what is inside of his mind when he shows his naked photographs with several Asian women who dressed up properly enough in some scenes of picture.

It was at Vivi Yip Art, Jakarta Marco came to Jakarta for his exhibition from July 1-9th, 2010. After he produced live streaming video on December 2, 2012, Marco held Art exhibition with the title “Destroy the head”. Indonesia gives Marco abundant idea to explore and from the beginning he was always keen on to elevate men and their behavior to be his work’s object. In his Chance proj­ect in Bandung, a total of 200 scupltures offered his own head to be crushed by all the guests invited in which the per­formance was documented using sur­veillance cameras (CCTV) all the time and broadcasted live ober the internet. Demolition also implied the destruction of the sanctuty of artists and works of art that have been (considered) to have high position.

“Like Cerberus, the animal guarding the gates of the underworld in Greek mythology, Marco Cassani’s practice consists of three heads: his practice as artist, his role as Lucie Fontaine’s em­ployee − regarding the unique program he developed at her Balinese branch Kayu − and, last but not least, his posi­tion as founder and CEO of VAPRICO (Value Prism Corporation), an art proj­ect organized like a venture that aims to highlight particularities of human being, collecting them in a form of in­tellectual multitude. Omni-tasking, schizophrenic and full of contradic­tions, this position brings a myriad of possibilities: Questioning not only the understanding what is means to be an artist today, it also triggers a larger dis­course about the lack of distinction be­tween labor and leisure (the very base of cultural production) while reaching its most paradoxical and therefore con­temporary state only through positions similar to that of Cassani.

The Embassy of Italy and the Ital­ian Cultural Institute Jakarta proudly presented an Artist Talk wth Marco Cassani and Astrid Honold from OFCA International as moderator. Marco Cas­sani talked about his artistic practice, particularly about his current solo ex­hibition entitled Indisciplinato at OFCA International from 26 May – 24 June, 2016 in its new home base Sarang build­ing in Yogyakarta.

”Presented through a care­fully orchestrated series of act ions, including a photoshoot that echoes Brancusi’s studio or using the “art production” of a village’s “mad­man”, Indisciplinato reveals the pos­sibility of questioning once again the state of the arts, but this time within a context far from the comfort zone of conceptual art. In other words, it is important to stress the fact that Marco Cassani has developed this radical and conceptual body of work within the context of Indonesia, a country whose dynamic and vibrant art scene is still rooted in certain understandings and conventions of what it means (or sup­posed to mean) to be an artist today.”