Habitués of the opposite - Francesco Cagnin
10.07.2021 - 07.08.2021
When I get Francesco's call, I am at my local organic supermarket in front of the supplements department. I know I have five euros in my wallet. I left my credit card at home. The five euros are for an American coffee at half past two and a Crodino at five. I can't afford any supplements, fortunately. I tell Francesco about the situation and he tells me about a time when the idea of having to eat begun to bore him so much that he made the choice to eat white bread and supplements only. I know the feeling. When I leave the organic supermarket, after taking one of those free bags with flower seeds that bees like, I go back to the studio and see a fat and fast spider. I put the iPhone on the chest and kill the spider with some artwork material, ruining it. Whatever... I resume talking to Francesco, who in the meantime had written down my last sentence, because Francesco takes note of all the assertive and structurally decapitated sentences.
The phone calls with Francesco are of this kind: first I speak, in a continuous way, without taking pauses; then he speaks, taking several pauses that I respect; then we break the call off. This is because we are both anxious subjects. In his half of the phone call, he tells me that he asked passers-by to crush nuts and took photos of them doing so. I have always admired the sinuosity of the second-class levers called nutcrackers, sisters of wheelbarrows, corkscrews, bellows; I compliment him. Francesco's photographs show the human subject through the inner and outer attributes of their hands: nails, scars, tattoos, wrinkles, skin colour, grip, strength. The photos show hands as in a slogan, in a repetitive, visually effective way able to convey a message, whatever it may be. "I'm going to break you" or "Have strength" or "Come on, let's all break this fucking walnut" or "Your nails need my manicure" or "Whatever your gender, the colour of your skin, your past, break the walnut". Slogans only work on those who are willing to believe they understand them.
Francesco tells me he wants to include a baby in the exhibition. I am reminded of Anne Geddes, an Australian photographer who was all the rage among little girls in the 1990s. Her photographs were printed on children's stationery, school diaries, squared notebooks.... She used to portray babies dressed as bees, broccoli, aubergines, nuts, acorns and more... It's the only association I can make between babies and nuts. I say it to Francesco and immediately regret it, because whatever I say to him takes on a special, intimate and sometimes eternal meaning. In our first conversation, ten years ago, we talked about bidets and ruminant animals. Francesco told me he wanted to learn to ruminate, to enjoy food as independently as possible. I giggled and he pierced me with his gaze. Francesco gets overwhelmed by the inconclusiveness of tools, instincts and metaphors. Heidegger would say that Francesco is lost in a clearing where there is too much fog to distinguish between the ontic and the ontological; we just look Francesco in the eye thinking about the nutcracker, while he reciprocates by looking at us seriously thinking about a toothbrush.
Text by Sofia Silva
Habitués of the opposite - Francesco Cagnin
10.07.2021 - 07.08.2021
When I get Francesco's call, I am at my local organic supermarket in front of the supplements department. I know I have five euros in my wallet. I left my credit card at home. The five euros are for an American coffee at half past two and a Crodino at five. I can't afford any supplements, fortunately. I tell Francesco about the situation and he tells me about a time when the idea of having to eat begun to bore him so much that he made the choice to eat white bread and supplements only. I know the feeling. When I leave the organic supermarket, after taking one of those free bags with flower seeds that bees like, I go back to the studio and see a fat and fast spider. I put the iPhone on the chest and kill the spider with some artwork material, ruining it. Whatever... I resume talking to Francesco, who in the meantime had written down my last sentence, because Francesco takes note of all the assertive and structurally decapitated sentences.
The phone calls with Francesco are of this kind: first I speak, in a continuous way, without taking pauses; then he speaks, taking several pauses that I respect; then we break the call off. This is because we are both anxious subjects. In his half of the phone call, he tells me that he asked passers-by to crush nuts and took photos of them doing so. I have always admired the sinuosity of the second-class levers called nutcrackers, sisters of wheelbarrows, corkscrews, bellows; I compliment him. Francesco's photographs show the human subject through the inner and outer attributes of their hands: nails, scars, tattoos, wrinkles, skin colour, grip, strength. The photos show hands as in a slogan, in a repetitive, visually effective way able to convey a message, whatever it may be. "I'm going to break you" or "Have strength" or "Come on, let's all break this fucking walnut" or "Your nails need my manicure" or "Whatever your gender, the colour of your skin, your past, break the walnut". Slogans only work on those who are willing to believe they understand them.
Francesco tells me he wants to include a baby in the exhibition. I am reminded of Anne Geddes, an Australian photographer who was all the rage among little girls in the 1990s. Her photographs were printed on children's stationery, school diaries, squared notebooks.... She used to portray babies dressed as bees, broccoli, aubergines, nuts, acorns and more... It's the only association I can make between babies and nuts. I say it to Francesco and immediately regret it, because whatever I say to him takes on a special, intimate and sometimes eternal meaning. In our first conversation, ten years ago, we talked about bidets and ruminant animals. Francesco told me he wanted to learn to ruminate, to enjoy food as independently as possible. I giggled and he pierced me with his gaze. Francesco gets overwhelmed by the inconclusiveness of tools, instincts and metaphors. Heidegger would say that Francesco is lost in a clearing where there is too much fog to distinguish between the ontic and the ontological; we just look Francesco in the eye thinking about the nutcracker, while he reciprocates by looking at us seriously thinking about a toothbrush.
Text by Sofia Silva