Angelo Cagnone

Angelo Cagnone was born in Carcare on March 5, 1941. His father was a doctor in Altare and here he moved his family when Angelo Cagnone was still a child. He attends the high school of art in Genoa where he graduated in 1959. In these years he made his first paintings while in Albissola attended the artists Giuseppe Capogrossi, Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, Asger Jorn, Piero Manzoni and others. In 1961 he moved to Milan where he attended Mimmo Rotella, Emilio Scanavino, Roberto Crippa and others. In 1963 he met Carlo Cardazzo who exhibited two of his works in the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. These two works are purchased by Peggy Guggenheim.  Following the death of Carlo Cardazzo, Galleria del Cavallino passes under the management of his brother Renato, who organizes an exhibition in 1965. In the autumn of 1967 he held his first personal exhibition in Milan at the Galleria del Naviglio. From 1970 to 1980 Angelo Cagnone has an exclusive relationship with the Blue Gallery in Milan, the relationship ends with the death of Peppino Palazzoli, owner of the Blue Gallery. Afterwards Angelo Cagnone will no longer have an exclusive relationship with any gallery, but will collaborate with several galleries. The flood that hit Altare in 1992 destroyed the photographic archive, the bibliographical documentation and about eighty works from the period between 1956 and 1992. Angelo Cagnone lives and works between Milan and Altare. The painting of Angelo Cagnone is not a painting of instinct and even emotional, is a painting thought, that is around an idea, a memory, a fact that strikes him, he builds the work by inserting elements, let's call them rhetorical, which serve to complete the picture. Characteristic elements of Angelo Cagnone's work are photos and writings. The photo as an initial cue to assemble around the work and the writing to capture the attention and curiosity of the viewer. The photos are often photos of female faces, sometimes unidentifiable because of a black stain that covers the face, while the sentences are deliberately incomplete, and therefore meaningless, that Angelo Cagnone draws from his youthful readings of authors in English and therefore already difficult to understand.