RUNO LAGOMARSINO
WE SUPPORT
2007
Single slideprojection and foamboard, 35 x 31 x 13 cm
CASI QUASI CINEMA
2006
installation (single slide-projection, foamboard, table and wooden trestles); 122 x 100, 5 x 42 cm, wooden trestles 70 cm.
The Iraq Series (Unfinished)
2005-2007
9 drawings and collages, framed each 33 x 45 cm
CASI QUASI CINEMA
In August 27, 2003 the US Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict at The Pentagon hosted a screening of the film The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1966. Considering it a useful illustration in relation to the problems faced in Iraq. The flyer for the screening read:
How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.
Which is the text projected into the screen.
THE IRAQ SERIES (UNFINISHED)
A series of diagram, graphs, cutout figures and traced shapes that contain references to the war in Iraq and the geo-political realities underpinning it. By combining plural historical and visual references such as the aspect of Al-Andalus with in European political history or the International oil market the drawings show complexities in the reading of the war and its reasons.
Runo Lagomarsino’s artistic practice explores how today’s political and social environments have developed through different discursive and historical processes, which produce representations and metaphors from which we read and reread history and society. Central to his work is an exploration of the construction of specific categories of “we” in the name of nations or ethnicities. Or to put it differently: the tensions between universalism as a notion of inclusive humankind and the realities of colonialism and postcolonialism. His work is often fractured with a number of presences. It is not only “he” that tries to speak through and together with it, but also the increasing number of voices that are strongly silent or loudly engaged with each other through the work. He works with layers to articulate the present and the past, the “West” and the “Rest”. These layers are often linked to each other forming specific conceptual maps and arenas. Some of them are systematically and powerfully clear. They pose questions of an unequal world order, on the legacy of colonialism, on the category of “race” and the dynamics of racism(s). Others are ambiguous and subtle in their level of abstraction, demanding the mediation of analytical categories, providing keys to un-code the forms of domination we are subjected to.
RUNO LAGOMARSINO (1977, Lund, SE) holds a MFA from Malmö Art Academy Sweden from 2003. In 2007-2008 he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. Working in different media such as video, drawing, sculptural objects, and photography, his practice explores how today’s political and social environments have developed through different discursive and historical processes, which produce representations and metaphors from which we read and reread history and society. Recent exhibitions include 7th Gwangju Biennal: Annual Report: A Year in Exhibitions, Gwangju, 2008; AutoStop, Malmö Konsthall, 2008; Imagine Action, Lisson Gallery, London, 2007; Ground Lost, Galerija Nova, Zagreb, 2007; Heterotopias, Thessaloniki Biennalen, Thessaloniki, 2007. He lives and works in Malmö.
