Diego Marcon
La Gola

Diego Marcon’s work draws upon different cinematic vocabularies from diverse genres including musicals, melodrama, horror and slapstick comedy. His uncanny, singular imagery employs various technical devices such as robotics, prosthetics and CGI. Words, sounds and gestures contribute to the troubling uncertainty or ambiguity that underpins Marcon’s work.

La Gola (2024) is structured by a series of letters between two correspondents, Gianni and Rossana. Over the course of eight letters, Gianni describes the successive courses of an exquisite banquet, while Rossana gives an account of the progressive decline of her mother’s health. The two characters are played by hyperrealistic mannequins, that appear motionless with their eyes modelled and animated in CGI. Their voices are accompanied by an original score composed by Federico Chiari. The music was performed on a Pietro Corna organ and recorded at the Cattedrale di Sant’Alessandro Martire in Bergamo. Drawing upon themes familiar from art history, Marcon playfully combines graphic accounts of cuisine and disease against an elaborate and energetic score, using language, voices and music to create dramatic tension. Produced in partnership with Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and Kunstverein in Hamburg, its presentation is Marcon’s first solo exhibition in Austria.

This exhibition is accompanied by a new book, jointly published by the three institutions with essays by Charlie Fox, Gianni Revello and Sofia Silva.

A limited edition 12” red vinyl record of the film score from La Gola (2024) is available from Kunsthalle Wien’s shop. All proceeds support Kunsthalle Wien’s programme.