10 February - 10 March 2023: Grégory Sugnaux - Into The Wolf's Mouth
Grégory Sugnaux’s solo exhibition Into The Wolf’s Mouth comprises a new series of portraits developed by the artist during his current residency in Rome at Istituto Svizzero.
Sugnaux paints a range of discernible characters that he has encountered when sifting through art history references, niche internet culture forums, found printed matter, and private photographs. The artist conceptualizes a sort of sympathetic bond with every portrait, giving them names to convey his particular affection towards these renderings and denoting responsibility for the character’s selfhood. To add reverence, the exhibition’s title, Into The Wolf’s Mouth translates a common Italian idiom, “In bocca al lupo”, portending good fortune over every image.
Cursed or haunted images online are known for possessing uncanny attributes, unsettling gazes, and poor aesthetics—they may represent the metamorphosis of grotesque. Appearing throughout social media and image-sharing platforms, Sugnaux likens the aesthetics of cursed-haunted images to the contemporary and formal use of grotesque. Its etymology comes from Renaissance-era excavations of the Domus Aurea, the Roman emperor Nero’s now-buried palace. Nero adorned the palace walls with hybridized human-like creatures bearing bestial features that enthralled well-known Renaissance painters. With the Italian word for cave (‘grotta’), the grotesque was established and described a stylistic revival influenced by ornamental ancient Roman frescos. Since, the meaning of the grotesque has evolved to signify unsettling representations of alterity and abjection—synonymous with monstrosity, ugliness, and fantastical kitsch or campiness.
Like the grotto fresco, over time, cursed-haunted images are subject to a similar fate of deterioration via the accumulation of digital noise and distortion the more they are disseminated online. Sugnaux recreates them as pristine images, out of circulation, and returns to antiquated understandings of the grotesque. The cave-like origins of grotesques are restored through Sugnaux’s decisive congé… sending them into the wolf's mouth.
Documentation © Roberto Apa
Grégory Sugnaux (b. 1989) lives and works in Fribourg. His work is generally concerned with the status of the image through the mediation of exhibition and painting. In extracting the familiar image from its existing pictorial codes, he rejects hierarchical values in art history and tries to turn attention to the representation of alternative systems in image making. With curation alongside his artistic practice, Sugnaux investigates the conditions of the exhibition in his varying approaches. From 2016 to 2020, he was co-curator of the project space WallRiss in Fribourg and since 2017 co-curator of Backslash Festival in Zürich. In 2015, he received the Kiefer Hablitzel I Göhner Art Price and was a finalist in the 2020 Swiss Art Awards. Recent solo exhibitions include data romance at Château de Gruyères (2022), heute denken, morgen fertig at Display, Berlin (2020), and Définitif, donc provisoire at Kunsthalle Friart in 2019. Following this show at Lateral Roma, an exhibition with artist Peter Schweri at suns.works in Zürich will open in February 2023.
OPENING TIMES:
Into The Wolf’s Mouth is on view from 10 February - 10 March 2023 and can be visited by appointment. For info please get in touch with info@lateralroma.eu.
We would like to thank the Canton of Fribourg for its generous support of this exhibition.
10 February - 10 March 2023: Grégory Sugnaux - Into The Wolf's Mouth
Grégory Sugnaux’s solo exhibition Into The Wolf’s Mouth comprises a new series of portraits developed by the artist during his current residency in Rome at Istituto Svizzero.
Sugnaux paints a range of discernible characters that he has encountered when sifting through art history references, niche internet culture forums, found printed matter, and private photographs. The artist conceptualizes a sort of sympathetic bond with every portrait, giving them names to convey his particular affection towards these renderings and denoting responsibility for the character’s selfhood. To add reverence, the exhibition’s title, Into The Wolf’s Mouth translates a common Italian idiom, “In bocca al lupo”, portending good fortune over every image.
Cursed or haunted images online are known for possessing uncanny attributes, unsettling gazes, and poor aesthetics—they may represent the metamorphosis of grotesque. Appearing throughout social media and image-sharing platforms, Sugnaux likens the aesthetics of cursed-haunted images to the contemporary and formal use of grotesque. Its etymology comes from Renaissance-era excavations of the Domus Aurea, the Roman emperor Nero’s now-buried palace. Nero adorned the palace walls with hybridized human-like creatures bearing bestial features that enthralled well-known Renaissance painters. With the Italian word for cave (‘grotta’), the grotesque was established and described a stylistic revival influenced by ornamental ancient Roman frescos. Since, the meaning of the grotesque has evolved to signify unsettling representations of alterity and abjection—synonymous with monstrosity, ugliness, and fantastical kitsch or campiness.
Like the grotto fresco, over time, cursed-haunted images are subject to a similar fate of deterioration via the accumulation of digital noise and distortion the more they are disseminated online. Sugnaux recreates them as pristine images, out of circulation, and returns to antiquated understandings of the grotesque. The cave-like origins of grotesques are restored through Sugnaux’s decisive congé… sending them into the wolf's mouth.
Documentation © Roberto Apa
Grégory Sugnaux (b. 1989) lives and works in Fribourg. His work is generally concerned with the status of the image through the mediation of exhibition and painting. In extracting the familiar image from its existing pictorial codes, he rejects hierarchical values in art history and tries to turn attention to the representation of alternative systems in image making. With curation alongside his artistic practice, Sugnaux investigates the conditions of the exhibition in his varying approaches. From 2016 to 2020, he was co-curator of the project space WallRiss in Fribourg and since 2017 co-curator of Backslash Festival in Zürich. In 2015, he received the Kiefer Hablitzel I Göhner Art Price and was a finalist in the 2020 Swiss Art Awards. Recent solo exhibitions include data romance at Château de Gruyères (2022), heute denken, morgen fertig at Display, Berlin (2020), and Définitif, donc provisoire at Kunsthalle Friart in 2019. Following this show at Lateral Roma, an exhibition with artist Peter Schweri at suns.works in Zürich will open in February 2023.
OPENING TIMES:
Into The Wolf’s Mouth is on view from 10 February - 10 March 2023 and can be visited by appointment. For info please get in touch with info@lateralroma.eu.
We would like to thank the Canton of Fribourg for its generous support of this exhibition.