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Do you cry often? Is written on a badly sewn flag Stefano W. Pasquini made in 1995, when he was living in London as a struggling artist in the midst of the YBA revolution. Little did he know he was witnessing a sort of art revolution that would change the course of the art scene in the UK. While he was sewing this flag – the first of a series that accompanied him throughout his career – his colleague and friend Kostas Bassanos came to visit, and since he wasn’t new to sewing (many of his artworks at that time made use of sewn fabric) he helped him out in the process. Twenty-two years later Pasquini and Bassanos (who both studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Italy, in the late 80’s) are collaborating on an exhibition project that lays its foundation on Do you cry often?, assuming, 20 years later, that you – the spectator – cry, every once in a while. Pasquini explores the act of crying on a superficial level by taking under scrutiny the subtle implications around our behavior on social networks, with flag-like prints made out of screenshots from Periscope and Instagram related collages, while Bassanos with an in-situ installation questions the precarious physicality of such textual emotional statements related to the sedimentary imagery that social networks project as self-indulgent memories.
Do you cry often?, Stefano W. Pasquini 1995, embroidered flag, 160 x 213 cm.