Toys
Solo exhibition, 2016
Viafarini, Milano (Italy)
Curated by Chiara Andrea Cima
Solo exhibition, 2016
Viafarini, Milano (Italy)
Curated by Chiara Andrea Cima
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Do you think it's fun to turn rebellion into cash? These questions, hurled at the public over 30 years ago by John Joseph Lydon—better known as Johnny Rotten—marked the end of the Sex Pistols. These same questions fuel CANEMORTO's creative path. This explosive trio launches an assault on dominant culture and its conventions, building their legend day by day, using any means necessary. CANEMORTO handle oil paints, engraving, and spray cans with ease; they create installations, music, poetry, performances, and videos. Yet on the street—their true and only home—it’s all about pure muralist brutalism. An approach defined not only by uncompromising freedom but also by the feeling of existing on the margins of the world.
If the artist, by tradition, is an enemy of social norms, CANEMORTO embody a violent and deliberate rebellion against power, authority, and religion. And above all, against the repression of desire. CANEMORTO's art is an intense, multifaceted force that refuses to compromise. On the streets, this defiance manifests as expressive violence. In galleries, it is a masterful exploration of their personal take on art brut. Rooted in vernacular culture, TV cartoons, and youth subcultures, their work represents an irremediable drift toward a universe populated by “misfit adults” who resist authority. CANEMORTO stand against those who seek to suppress dissent against standardisation, serving as a reminder that art has never been about morality or good intentions!
The question of what constitutes art—and what does not—is a thorny one, particularly when wielded by those in power. In today’s society, art and the artists that make it are often only recognised when it attains economic value. Or when the countercultural movement that wove change and innovation into the social fabric has ceased to exist. It is always difficult to recognise the seeds of a new movement and experience it firsthand. Yet, as we all know by now, art and culture are inventions and, without artists, they simply would not exist. Rooted in post-graffiti and outsider art, CANEMORTO’s ironic and aggressively unconventional approach sows confusion while remaining deeply connected to art history, creating a highly distinctive visual disconnect.
To fully grasp and enjoy CANEMORTO’s “vandal” art, one must piece together a multitude of fragments ranging from Barry McGee to Ema Jons via Permeke, Markus Lupertz, and Matthew Monahan, courageously sliding through Alessandro Pessoli, Kippenberger, David Lynch, Fischli & Weiss, and Tilf & Blackwan, before descending even further into the subconscious depths inhabited by Paul McCarthy and the Chapman brothers. Finally, it is crucial to ask a few questions about what it means to create social and cultural bonds within the environment you live in. An environment that often seeks to dominate and entrap us, rather than to liberate.
CANEMORTO are slaves to Txakurra. Txakurra is everything. Txakurra does not exist. Txakurra is the guiding force of a creative journey in which form and style lose meaning, where childhood memories and ritualistic suggestions collide. It exists for the sheer joy of surprising the oblivious passersby who populate the streets of planet Earth. Txakurra is probably a complex allegory in which stories, characters, and myths are connected in apparently arbitrary but poetically suggestive visual forms. Txakurra is a stray dog wandering the streets with a napalm-swollen heart. Txakurra lives between a rock and a hard place. Between the gall of some and the honey of others. In Txakurra, the future of the public domain is vague and uncertain, but one thing’s for sure: it will be in full colour.
Giacomo Spazio
VIDEO
Video filmed and edited by Marco Proserpio
Written and performed by CANEMORTO
Audio recording and audio mixing by Matteo Pansana
Photographs by Jacopo Farina
If the artist, by tradition, is an enemy of social norms, CANEMORTO embody a violent and deliberate rebellion against power, authority, and religion. And above all, against the repression of desire. CANEMORTO's art is an intense, multifaceted force that refuses to compromise. On the streets, this defiance manifests as expressive violence. In galleries, it is a masterful exploration of their personal take on art brut. Rooted in vernacular culture, TV cartoons, and youth subcultures, their work represents an irremediable drift toward a universe populated by “misfit adults” who resist authority. CANEMORTO stand against those who seek to suppress dissent against standardisation, serving as a reminder that art has never been about morality or good intentions!
The question of what constitutes art—and what does not—is a thorny one, particularly when wielded by those in power. In today’s society, art and the artists that make it are often only recognised when it attains economic value. Or when the countercultural movement that wove change and innovation into the social fabric has ceased to exist. It is always difficult to recognise the seeds of a new movement and experience it firsthand. Yet, as we all know by now, art and culture are inventions and, without artists, they simply would not exist. Rooted in post-graffiti and outsider art, CANEMORTO’s ironic and aggressively unconventional approach sows confusion while remaining deeply connected to art history, creating a highly distinctive visual disconnect.
To fully grasp and enjoy CANEMORTO’s “vandal” art, one must piece together a multitude of fragments ranging from Barry McGee to Ema Jons via Permeke, Markus Lupertz, and Matthew Monahan, courageously sliding through Alessandro Pessoli, Kippenberger, David Lynch, Fischli & Weiss, and Tilf & Blackwan, before descending even further into the subconscious depths inhabited by Paul McCarthy and the Chapman brothers. Finally, it is crucial to ask a few questions about what it means to create social and cultural bonds within the environment you live in. An environment that often seeks to dominate and entrap us, rather than to liberate.
CANEMORTO are slaves to Txakurra. Txakurra is everything. Txakurra does not exist. Txakurra is the guiding force of a creative journey in which form and style lose meaning, where childhood memories and ritualistic suggestions collide. It exists for the sheer joy of surprising the oblivious passersby who populate the streets of planet Earth. Txakurra is probably a complex allegory in which stories, characters, and myths are connected in apparently arbitrary but poetically suggestive visual forms. Txakurra is a stray dog wandering the streets with a napalm-swollen heart. Txakurra lives between a rock and a hard place. Between the gall of some and the honey of others. In Txakurra, the future of the public domain is vague and uncertain, but one thing’s for sure: it will be in full colour.
Giacomo Spazio
VIDEO
Video filmed and edited by Marco Proserpio
Written and performed by CANEMORTO
Audio recording and audio mixing by Matteo Pansana
Photographs by Jacopo Farina
Projects