An exhibition dedicated to JAGO (Jacopo Cardillo) sculptor known as "The Social Artist” for her innate communication skills and her great success on social media.
In his use of the means of common action Jago goes straight to the heart of the public who know or appreciate him. Comparable in this sense to a rock star, transmits the love for art to young people: live streaming and photo and video documentation that involve its audience on the web.
JAGO documents for the first time in an exhibition of works created up to now, from sculpted river stones (from Memoria di Séa Excalibur), to the most recent monumental sculptures (such as Son Veiled and Pietà), but we also find the portrait of Pope Benedict XVI (Habemus Hominem).
The body of Pope Benedict XVI is stripped naked, the face smiles with unprecedented sweetness, the emaciated bust brings out the creaturely humanity of someone who has returned to being a man. Venus is abruptly withdrawn from traditional meanings, deprived of youth and of any aesthetic seduction, a choice alluding to other values that advocate a different truth. This does not exclude that the attitude of the arms still refers to an ancient grace. A symbolic indication of timeless suffering is the figure of the Veiled Son, from the Cappella dei Bianchi in the Neapolitan Sanità district.
Palazzo Bonaparte will also be transformed into an artist's studio: during the months of the exhibition.
JAGO is an Italian artist who works in the field of sculpture, graphics and video production. Born in Frosinone (Italy) in 1987, where he attended the art school and then the Academy of Fine Arts (left in 2010). Since 2016, the year of your first personal exhibition in the capital, you have lived and worked in Italy, China and America. He was a guest professor at the New York Academy of Art, where he held a master class and several lessons in 2018. He has received numerous national and international awards such as: the Pontifical Medal (presented to him by Cardinal Ravasi on the occasion of the Pontifical Academies award in 2010), the Gala de l'Art prize in Monte Carlo in 2013, the Pio Catel prize in 2015, the Arte Fiera public prize in 2017 and he was also inducted as Master of Stone at the 2017 Macc Marble. At the age of 24 , upon presentation by Maria Teresa Benedetti, was selected by Vittorio Sgarbi to participate in the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the marble bust of Pope BenedettoXVI (2009) which earned him the aforementioned Pontifical Medal. The early sculpture was then reworked in 2016, taking the name of Habemus Hominem and becoming one of his best known works. The successful stripping of the Pope Emeritus from his vestments was exhibited in Rome, in 2018, at the CarloBilotti Museum in Villa Borghese, attracting a record number of visitors (more than 3.500 during the inauguration). Following an exhibition at the Armory Show in Manhattan, JAGO moved to New York. Here begins the creation of the Veiled Son, permanently exhibited in the Cappella dei Bianchi in the Church of San Severo Fuori le Mura in Naples. The work is inspired by the eighteenth-century Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino, located in the San Severo Chapel Museum, also in Naples. The artistic research of J ago has its roots in traditional techniques and establishes a direct relationship with the public through the use of videos and social networks, to share the production process. In 2019, on the occasion of the Beyond mission of ESA (European Space Agency), JAGO was the first artist to have sent a marble sculpture to the International Space Station. Entitled The First Baby and depicting the fetus of a newborn, it returned to Earth in February 2020 under the custody of the head of mission, Luca Parmitano. Since May 2020 Jago has resided in Naples having elected his studio in the Church of Sant'Aspreno ai Crociferi. At the beginning of November he created the installation Look Down then temporarily located in Piazza del Plebiscito (now in the desert of Al Haniyah in Fujairah), while on 1 October 2021 he installed the work Pietà in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Montesanto, in Piazza del Popolo in Rome
