Oscar Giaconia shows his work for the first time in Lisbon with the set CRYPTOZOOGODEMICHET at MONITOR Lisbon. There are seven bodies that emerge in a language of various layers and transparencies. These emphasize the artist’s knowledge and practice: to build a symbiosis between the cycle of organic life and its relationship with artificial materials. In the context of the exhibition room, the theme of multiplicity is obvious given the earth-red wall colour that occupies the lower part and the rest up to the matrix white ceiling. First, it reveals the manipulation duplicity of composite matter. To analyze these aspects in greater detail, I repeat the question in the exhibition text: can life reflect the image of the painting? Or is it its opposite? And I would like to add: does art belong to nature? Or should art think about how to use new forms of action on what innately already exists?

This celebration of the natural cycle, of coexistence with the dead, but also its relationship with manufactured objects, is a complex construction with several ramifications. In the first analysis, from these pieces we find our conscious existence, the possibility of touch, thought, reasoning and love. Based on human nature, Giaconia’s artistic work and thought is revealed. In other words, the artist, from his human abilities, has the power to choose to join or separate the elements chosen by him, whether it be paint, oil, oxides, ox gall, tempera, among others.

The next step in the cycle is material conception, the act of presenting the materials, experimenting with them and understanding their reactions. This second step can be seen in parallel with the presence of other beings with cosmic ability, as well as other chemical behaviours, constantly transcending between the two limbo poles, magic and science. Yellowish colors are formed and figures that become cylindrical and ascending.

Finally, in the last point, and perhaps also the first, box-frames keep the final product, displaying and hiding it. From the material standpoint, these frames hold, but also protect the pieces, in the dualistic obscurity between organic and artificial. Two pieces made of nylon and four of recycled leather protect and frame, becoming «image-objects» in Giaconia’s artistic process.

While seeing CRYPTOZOOGODEMICHET, I find in these «bio-images» a tension, perhaps a shock with the unexpected contact of the unknown. No matter how much we deconstruct and rationalize all its components, there is a place of oddness and friction of the ordinary. The mysticism, colour and cylindrical figure of the Calabiyau («a column of pig snouts, a column of crabs is a column of pumpkins, creature-debris […]») trace their process of surgery, collage and transplantation overlaid in magic, medicine, and taxidermy.

The exhibition CRYPTOZOOGODEMICHET is on view at MONITOR Lisbon until October 30.