At the end of final exhibition at Luciana Matalon Foundation in Milan, the jury of the YICCA 21/22 Young International Contest of Contemporary Art has announced Giovanni Longo winning artist of this edition.
Giovanni Longo, in his artistic research, experiments with multiple media focusing on the ability of languages to influence narration. For several years he has been concentrating his efforts on reclaiming wood found at river mouths at various places in the Mediterranean. Calabria, his birth place, is his favourite spot. Through classification and comparison, he uses this wood to create complete or evocative skeletal structures — the Fragile Skeletons and Seamless series — which interact with space and time, preserving the intrinsic properties of the original material such as colour, shape and texture.
In the winning artwork, Short Story, Longo recomposes the anatomical structure of a calf with recovered wood. The animal pose tells the story of its short life. From birth (the blue ribbon that binds the rear legs) to its dead. A simple observation that opens up to multiple interpretations of a spiritual and anthropological nature.
YICCA is an Art Prize curated by Massimo Toffolo and Margherita Jedrzejewska. The award is intended to support contemporary art and the emerging artists with the cash prize and the final exhibition in a European capital. YICCA is an open network of comparison between artists and professionals from all over the world.
Giovanni Longo 