The performance by Cuoghi Corsello Il segreto di Collo will take place on 22nd September from10.30 – 11p.m.

Guido Costa Projects is pleased to be able to invite you to an exhibition of new work by Cuoghi Corsello, two artists from Bologna. The opening of the exhibition Il segreti di Collo (Collo’s secret) will take place from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Thursday 22nd September, on the occasion of the Borgo Nuovo gallery night in Turin.
Monica Cuoghi (Mantova, 1965) and Claudio Corselli (Bologna, 1964) have been working on the international art scene since the beginning of the 90s, and represent a prototype of the artistic couple, clearly evident in their uniquely strong radical and vibrant bond.
Together these two artists pioneered made in Italy graffitismo, on their own, giving rise to many imitators. Their artistic story is a genuine existential paradigm of the entire Italian underground scene.
Their story grows out of post-1997 Bologna, where it shared the impetus of the city’s hardened underground culture before developing into a fusion of fairytales and ‘extreme’ art. This pure metropolitan fairytale is peopled with the artworks, which act out a very personal poetic saga charged with magic and spirituality. The settings for these stories are the old factories and squats that Cuoghi Corsello dress with dignity, turning them into theatres of creativity whose fairytale redundancy renders them bewildering.
Their homes, from Villa Genziana to Giardino dei Bucintoro until the latest Fiat, have over the years become the secret holds of experimentation and the storerooms of beauty: theatres of sculpture, painting and performances, and at the same time a private oasis of reality, purity and dreams. The lifecycle of their work within these walls is often marked by the ephemeral and monumental, invested with a very personal eclecticism. The pieces pass through a calendar of existential lives: initially they are the exclusive property of friends and supporters; then, as with all self-respecting legends, they reach an ever-larger spectrum of admirers and faithful. Bridging as they do the distances between academia, high- and low-culture, and the ranks of professors and punks, these objects of wonder challenge conventional artistic definitions, above all conservative artistic scenarios. Cuoghi Corsello, therefore, defie classification and critical interpretation.
Their total art, par excellence, has always aroused unconditional feelings of love and hate, only recently achieving coherent critical recognition. This attitude has seen them grouped together with the most radical experimental contemporary artists, such as Kippenberger and the Viennese artist Gelatin.
Their exhibition experience is also an unusual story, amounting to ten or so shows held in galleries, natural sites and museums, which together describe a sort of esoteric pathway that still has to be properly defined as it shuns definition and captivity.
Their homes are genuine masterpieces. These fantastic habitats have gone unrecorded, except in the vivid memories of visitors and the tales of those who were lucky enough gain access to their group. Incomplete records of these unique worlds and its inhabitants (Petronilla, Bello, Suf, CK8, Pea Brain and many others) are jealously guarded in prestigious collections.
As with real poetry, everything else is just a memory or recollection.
For this exhibition, which opens the new season at Guido Costa Projects, Cuoghi Corsello have chosen to tell a new fairytale, a kind of electronic homage to the memory of their cat, Collo. The exhibition also contains a brief retrospective of work they have done over the last five years, this includes paintings, videos and sculptures.
This story takes us down to a cat’s-eye-view of the world, to an astounding and poetic landscape brimming with colours, small objects, fantastic pathways and microscopic secrets. Collo dons the proverbial paraphernalia of a master of ceremonies, and will have an electronic ‘mantra’ dedicated to him. The effect of this evocation lies somewhere between spiritualism and eulogia.
The exhibition will also contain a series of paintings and a large ‘magic nativity scene’. Following the opening night, Fiat, the last museum home for Cuoghi Corsello, will begin its own transformation.
The exhibition Il segreto di Collo is open to the public every day from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. and from 3 – 7 p.m. from 22 September to Friday 28 October.
The performance will take place from 10.30 – 11 p.m. on 22 September.
Cuoghi Corsello are represented in Italy by the Guido Costa Projects in Torino and the Neon gallery in Bologna.