Visual Art Exhibition

Mikado
11 September – 20 November 2009

Ludovica Gioscia  is best known for using wallpaper in her work made Mikado from screen printed wallpaper, sculpted into head like shapes and adorned by jewellery and hairpieces.  These sculptures were then mounted on wooden poles, which in turn were displayed in a falling motion.

Mikado is the name of a 19^th century parlour game, later known as Pick-Up Sticks. It is also the title of Gilbert and Sullivan’s popular comic opera, and Gioscia references both the game and the opera in the work. Using a hybrid iconography of mixed references to the baroque, 19^th century exoticism, pop art and graphics from Disney to Nu-Rave, Gioscia makes what she calls ‘campscapes’, celebrating and criticizing the visual language of opulence.
Alongside the exhibition Gioscia presented a triptych of collages with titles referring to the female characters of the opera, Yum Yum, Pitti Sing and Peep Bo. Baroque fashion illustrations obscure the faces of contemporary models. Beyond merging historical and contemporary imagery, the work also reminded us of the surrealist representation of women as fetishised muses.
Ludovica Gioscia works across many different media, from installations to drawings as well as animation. For Mikado she drew on all these different techniques in her own unique and contemporary style.

Ludovica Gioscia Information Sheet

Ludovica Gioscia was born in Rome in 1977 and lives and works in London. She presented a solo exhibition at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and a wallpaper installation at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona in 2010.  She has previously shown at The Agency, London and Sarah Tecchia Roma New York in New York, as well as at the South London Gallery, Jerwood Space, Wax in Budapest and MNAC in Bucharest.
(Correct at the time of exhibition, Nov 2009)