T.J. Wilcox: L’eau de vie

opening: Thursday 29th January 2009 h. 18-21 the artist will be present

On the same evening there will be openings at the francesca kaufmann gallery with Thomas Zipp and the Giò Marconi gallery with Wade Guyton, Catherine Sullivan and Vibeke Tandberg Raffaella Cortese is pleased to announce the second solo exhibition of American artist T.J. Wilcox. Wilcox, well-known for his Super 8 films and his collages, describes with harrowing poetry and sublime elegance, episodes from the lives of famous historical characters (The Emperor Hadrian, or the Coutess di Castiglione) and less famous ones (Ortino, Anastasia’s little dog). For his solo exhibition, the artist will be presenting a series of works never shown before and conceived especially for the show. L’eau de Vie, is the title of the video composed of three chapters in which water, the most important and familiar element, becomes the file rouge connecting different stories. The characters are fascinating and controversial figures like the provocative and seductive marchesa Casati and her night trips by gondola and like the American millionaire Diamond Jim Brady famous for his extraordinary appetite and gluttony. Wilcox also tells us about the ancient Japanese fishing method known as Ukai and on how a little girl discovered an endangered turtle, a diamondback terrapin, in her swimming pool. A story created by different streams with separate sources which form the same abundant river. A number of collages based on video images will be on show.

T.J. Wilcox (1965, Seattle Washington) lives and works in New York. He studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York and at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. His works have bee on exhibition in many museums among which Whitney Museum of American Art (2000, 2004), New York; Museum Ludwig , Cologne (2006) and at Stedeliijk Museum, Amsterdam (2007)

T.J. Wilcox
L’eau de vie