Claque & Shill, 2011
Pencil on paper, meera white granite, 36 x 46 x 4 cm

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Claque & Shill, 2011
Pencil on paper, spluga green granite, 48 x 36 x 4 cm

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Installation view, Claque & Shill at Gasconade, Milan, 2011

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Claque & Shill, 2011
Pencil on paper, absolute black granite, 36 x 46 x 4 cm

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Installation view, Claque & Shill at Gasconade, Milan, 2011

Claque & Shill, 2011
Pencil on paper, eucalipto green granite, 48 x 36 x 4 cm

all images courtesy Gasconade, Milan
photos by ALESSANDRO ZAMBIANCHI

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ANDREA ROMANO‘ small-scale pencil reproductions of photo portraits of KENNY, a Royal White Tiger, are in a word ambiguous. Due to inbreeding, Kenny was mentally retarded and had physical handicaps, which aren’t striking at first glance but which, however, let you unsure, whether to ascribe these deformities to the animal or if they have been altered in some way by the artist’s hand.

Going even more into this idea of ambiguity, the title of the show Claque & Shill hints the feeling that something is unreliable: the claque is a group of people who are paid to applaud or deride a performance and thereby attempt to influence the audience. The shill is someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller and encourages other onlookers or audience members to purchase a particular good or service. Claque and shill infiltrate into a group in order to orientate the taste of its members and manipulate the perception of a phenomenon.

By making use of remote, sometimes antagonistic material, ROMANO’s work consistently questions the notion of origin, and the relationship between one’s identity and one’s work blurring the line between reality, perception and representation.

Claque & Shill by Milan-based artist ANDREA ROMANO was the first ever solo show at Gasconade, a newly nonprofit art space in Milan (directed by MICHELE D’AURIZIO and LUCA CASTIGLIONI), which is devoted to present Milanese artists born in the 1980s. And the good news is that the second solo show at Gasconade will present the work of KASPAR MÜLLER from 27 January to 25 Febuary, 2012 (opening the 26th January!), more info via http://www.gasconade.it/