Thursday, January 14, 2010

Keith Rocka Knittel presents: Rocco Gaccione's "Suspiria"




Keith Rocka Knittel: "Keith Rocka Knittel Presents: Rocco Gaccione's Suspiria," 2009 (installation views)
Wood planks, speakers, video, monitor, scenic flat
Handle Like Eggs Studio, Valencia, CA

"For Immediate Release:
Keith Rocka Knittel presents:
Rocco Gaccione’s “Suspiria”

Valencia, CA – Keith Rocka Knittel is pleased to present a new site-specific work by Italian artist Rocco Gaccione as the first installment of the Handle Like Eggs Studio Exchange Program. Rocco Gaccione’s piece “Suspiria” will be on display in Broad Studio 20 at CalArts in Valencia, California on Tuesday, December 15, 2009, from 7-10PM.
“Suspiria,” 2009, uses appropriated footage from the 1977 film “Suspiria,” directed by Dario Argento, to create an environment that is at once inviting and repulsive. The soundtrack (by the Italian progressive-psych rock band Goblin) is amplified and looped into an endless crescendo. The tropes of Italian horror movies, or Giallo, are expanded beyond the constraints of the video frame into the viewer’s personal space, creating a tense expanse where voyeur and victim become one and the same.
Rocco Gaccione (b. 1984) is a graduate of The Mediterranean Center for Arts and Sciences Studio Art Program, in Sicily, Italy. He received the Enzio Fabriccone Award of Excellence from the Centro per Arte Contemporanea Italiana a Milano (CACIM) in 2007, the youngest recipient of the award. Gaccione has exhibited his work in Europe and Asia, and has an upcoming solo show in 2010 in New York City. He currently resides in Cosenza, Italy.
The Handle Like Eggs Studio Exchange Program invites artists from outside of North America to create site-specific installations in Keith Rocka Knittel’s graduate art studio at CalArts. The goal is to create a dialogue between artists from around the world, and present new, unseen works to the students of CalArts."