CLÉMENT COGITORE. THE EVIL EYE

“The image of paradise, exemplified by advertising aesthetics, can become an image of hell,” says Clément Cogitore. “My story lies in between, in the passage from one to the other.” The French artist brings The Evil Eye to Venice, a video installation created in 2018. A large LED screen draws attention in a paradoxically intimate space, while a female narrator guides viewers through a journey across anonymous, stereotyped scenes sourced from global archives of images used in commercials and political campaigns. By borrowing and reframing these promotional visuals as documentary fragments, Cogitore stages an unsettling and ambivalent mise-en-scène.

Featured image: The Evil Eye, 2018. Exhibition view at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2021).