JAGO is an Italian artist working in the field of sculpture. He was born in Frosinone (Italy) in 1987, where he studied art high school and then the Academy of Fine Arts (left in 2010).
His artistic research is rooted in traditional techniques. Jago uses marble as a noble material, but he treats fundamental themes of the era he inhabits, establishing a direct relationship with the public through the use of video and social networks to share the production process.
At the age of 24, upon presentation by Maria Teresa Benedetti, he was selected by Vittorio Sgarbi to participate in the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the marble bust of Pope Benedict XVI (2009) that earned him the Pontifical Medal. The youthful sculpture was then reworked in 2016, taking the name Habemus Hominem and becoming one of his best-known works.
Since his first solo exhibition in the capital in 2016, he has lived and worked in Italy, China and America. He has been a visiting professor at the New York Academy of Art, where he gave a masterclass and several lectures in 2018.
“Jago is a world, he is an existence, a character. There is in him a very strong will to communicate”
Maria Teresa Benedetti
Following an exhibition at the Armory Show in Manhattan, JAGO moved to New York. There he began the creation of Veiled Son, permanently displayed inside the Chapel of the Whites in the church of San Severo Fuori le Mura in Naples.
In 2019, on the occasion of the European Space Agency (ESA) Beyond mission, JAGO was the first artist to send a marble sculpture to the International Space Station. The work, titled The First Baby and depicting a newborn fetus, returned to Earth in February 2020 under the custody of the mission leader, Luca Parmitano.
In November of the same year, he made the installation Look Down, which was placed in Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples, then later displayed in the Al Haniyah Desert in Fujairah (UAE). On October 1, 2021, JAGO installed his Pietas in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Piazza del Popolo (Rome), and on March 12, 2022, he inaugurated his solo exhibition at Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
FAIRS AND AUCTIONS
AWARDS
COURSES AND LECTURES
2018 Workshop, “The social communication of art,” Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, Italy
2018 Mater Class, NewYork Academy of Art, NewYork, USA
2018 Lecture, NewYork Academy of Art, NewYork, USA
PERFORMANCE
PUBLICATIONS