Michael Svizzero is a multi-medium conceptual artist whose primary interests are, but is not limited to photography and film. Originally from Holbrook, Massachusett, Michael is currently a student at Parson School of Design and is due to get his Bachelors in Fine Art majoring Photography in May of 2021. He is second time on Pineapple, you can check out his previous post here.
Cigarette Sculpture Project
February 2020 – At the time studying in Florence, the Corona Virus outbreak was taking ravage over Europe, going into March, and haunted my education as I knew it studying abroad. Returning to Brooklyn after much chaos and heartbreak, I found that all my ongoing artistic projects had to come to a halt due to this horrible pandemic. Not only because I was in a completely different place, during a time where I had a complete lack of tools and equipment, but also because it did not feel right. I was devastated to come back and then to end up in this self isolated cage where I could not even see my best friend or even go to the park across the street. Additionally the work I was making did no longer reflected what was happening in my life. Everything had been swarmed up by this virus. What I was watching, what I was talking about, what I was thinking about, and what I was hoping constantly would come to an end. Finding myself in this same repetition of thoughts, creating work based on anything else seemed pointless. I was trapped into this narrative that made everything prior seem distant.
Taking this feeling of being trapped, I began to explore myself, my space, but more importantly how I felt stuck in my small studio apartment for over a month. I noticed myself smoking a lot of cigarettes. And I mean a lot. It was like by sitting by the window and smoking brought me back to where I was supposed to be for that short 5-15 minute break. Before coming back to America, I had made sure to purchase a carton of cigarettes to take advantage of the 10$ less per pack price difference. After a month, that every pack was gone. My last retreat from this nightmare gone.
When thinking about what I would make for my final project, now having to be done remotely, I initially fell into a crisis of artist block. Having previously been working on this idea of Queer Visuality in Florence, I did not know how to continue in this new cage I was placed in.
A show that skyrocketed to fame during this “Quarantine Season”, I call it, was Tiger King (cehck it out here). It is a show documenting the eccentric and wild story of a man who owned a private collection of exotic cat named Joe Exotic (aka Tiger King). Watching this documentary I could not help but compare my current situation to the tigers being caged in. An artist, much like a tiger, is meant to roam free, explore, and hunt for idea. None of which they could do in any sort of confinement I felt.
Photographs / Model: @realitsmichael / @msvizzeroproductions /
https://www.michaelsvizzero.com
