Agostino is like a foreign exchange student from an enigmatic era of science. Italians from the same region as Agostino say he speaks a different language, a sort of “ancient Latin” one could imagine casually spoken today only at a gathering of Alchemists Anonymous. The title of his exhibition, Hierogamy, means the sacred union – or, more simply, sex – between the mortal and the immortal.
The fusion of opposites relates both to the theme of this brand-new body of work as well as Agostino’s process itself, which is a combination of old master techniques and mad genius impulse. The heart of the exhibition is Agostino’s Sacrum Facare, in which the intimacy between two lovers appears to have lifted them into the ether and is now recomposing their two bodies into one otherworldly light source. The painting is in fact the result of Agostino’s attempt to destroy his own work: unhappy with his first go at it, he set the canvas on fire with the intent to start anew, but instead found new inspiration in the bubbling and crackling surface. The finished work has sprung from its own fiery death and, like a phoenix, is as magical and surreal.
