Hugo Canoilas

"During early August Canoilas was in the process of completing a large scale painting, to be revealed during an exhibition opening at a convents ruin (Ruin of the Concento cento archi) end of August where it will be mounted on a 4 meter high aluminum structure - alluding to classical ceiling painting. It collects a variety of cultural and art historical references: first and foremost the work is inspired by Martin Kippenberger’s The Happy End of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika' (1994). This 15x8 meter large painting features a number of tables and seats that can also be encountered in the Kippenberger installation, which both of us saw at the artists retrospective at Tate Modern in 2006. The floating furniture is adorned by a number of popish phrases (made from a drift on the poetry Lucio Piccolo), such as the writings of local poet Lucio Piccolo applied using stencils and thus akin in form to Lawrence Weiner’s text works. Next to the chairs and tables a boat is depicted, that, according to Canoilas, is a pun to Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1918), secured by pictorial references such as nails that stem directly from Shûji Tereyama's film The Process (1975) (among others)." Tobi Maier