Joseph Sivilli

Canciones de mi Padre

12 August - 19 September 2021

The project “Canciones de mi Padre” (Songs of my Father) by the artist Joseph Sivilli explores concepts of identity, both personal and biological. The work conceptualizes the prospect of belonging to multiple places at once, and at the same time nowhere at all. The exhibition draws on imagery from Tucson, Arizona, USA where the artist was born, and the austere mountain landscape near Rondane, Norway, where the works were produced and to which the artist feels a strong connection. Between the imagery of cacti, mountain grass and reindeer moss, the works present a juxtaposition of conflicting lifecycles, with some frozen in time, while others are left to grow and decay. The wall piece is stamped out by foot and made immortal through the firing process.

The title of this exhibition comes from the 1987 album by Linda Ronstadt, a collection of Mexican folk songs that have come over time to be considered the defining album of the artist’s hometown of Tucson. The album speaks to a nostalgia for things that never were, and a reliance on reaching to the past to define one’s present. In that vein, Sivilli strives to find a common thread that might bind his disparate lives, as well as all life, together.

Joseph Sivilli, born in 1988 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. Sivilli completed his studies at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, Norway, with a BA in 2011 and an MA in 2013. He has his studio in Tucson, and has had solo exhibitions in many countries, including in Norway, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, and USA. His work is represented in several collections, both public and private, and has received a number of awards for his work.