| Dates: | born 1966
| | Biography: | (artist biography as of 2006)
Rigo 23
Born 1966, Madeira Island, Portugal.
Lives and works in San Francisco, USA
Selected solo exhibitions
Jam Sessions: Rigo 84-23. 2006, Centra
Das Artes- Casa Das Mudas, Madeira
Island, Galena Ze dos Bois, Lisbon,
Portugal
Gallery Paule Anglim. 2006, San
Francisco, USA
Gallery Paule Anglim, 2002. San
Francisco, USA
Artists Space. 2001, New York, USA
Making Made in Taiwan 3, 2001, IT Park
Gallery, Taipei
Tate Wikikuwa (The Wind Follows the
Sun), 2000, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Santiago
Rigo 99-MATRIX/Berkeley 179. 1999,
Berleley Art Museum and Paicific Film
Archive, California, Berkeley, USA
SECA Art Award Exhibition ,1999, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San
Francisco, USA
Making Made in Taiwan 2, 1999, Gallery
Paule Anglim, San Francisco, USA
Selected group exhibitions
Monuments for the USA, 2005, White
Columns, New York, USA
Touch of Evil, 2005, Tijuana Station,
Tijuana, Mexico
Found: Everyday Objects in Bay Area
Art 2005, di Rosa Preserve, Napa,
California
Topographies, 2004, San Francisco Art
Institute and Pasadena Museum of
California Art
California Biennial, 2004, Orange County
Museum of Art Newport Beach, USA
Global Priority, 2004, San Francisco
Arts Commission Gallery, San
Francisco, USA
Revealing Influences: Conversations with
Bay Area Artists, 2003, Museum of Craft
and Folk Art, San Francisco, USA
Wo War, 2002, The Luggage Store, San
Francisco, USA Fast Forward, Berkeley
Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive,
Berkeley USA
Widely Unknown: Margaret Kilgallen and
Her Circle. 2001, Deitch Projects, New
York, USA
Marked: Bay Area Drawings, 2001,
Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma
and Hunter College Art Galleries, New
York, USA
democracy! 2000, Royal College of Art,
London, UK
Juvenilia, 2000, Yerba Buena Centre for
the Arts, San Francisco, USA
Goddamn the Pusherman, 2000, The
Showroom Gallery, London, UK
Further reading
Mark Beasley, Rigo 23 Vol. 1, Centra
das Artes Casas das Mundas, Calheta,
Madeira, 2006
David Bonetti, 'A Constructivist
Comeback', San Francisco Chronicle.
March 16, 2002
Thomas Bonk, 'San Jose Statement' Los
Angeles Times, June 26 2006
M.T. Karthik, 'Rigo 23', [W] ART. no.008,
2006, pp. 24-29
Topographies, San Francisco Art
institute, 2004
| | | Source: | "Liverpool Biennial Liverpool 06", exhibition catalogue | | | Date of source: | 2006 |
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| | Description: | A nomadic artist, an urban
interventionist, a muralist, a
conceptualist, and above all a political
activist, Rigo creates work that is site-
specific and context-sensitive, and often
informed by his political activism. He
interacts with contexts and places,
appropriating the vernacular, inducing
participation, reorienting and reinventing
space, commenting on the urgencies of
everyday life and history, and addressing
unspoken political issues.
Over the years, he has been involved
with Robert King, one of three political
prisoners known as the Angola Three',
and made a series of works related to
King's experience and to prison in
general.
Rigo takes advantage of the ubiquity of
traffic signage in the organisation of
modern cities, and has produced outdoor
monument-size murals using signs with
politically ambiguous words. Inner City
Home, for example, executed on a
municipal housing project in San
Francisco, is a mural visible from street
level, and presents itself as a reminder of
the poverty and social problems inherent
in contemporary inner cities.
While the city's visual display and
mapping reflect the power structure of its
society, these signage murals tackle the
opacity and obscurity of certain sites.
Manray Hsu
| | Description Source: | "Liverpool Biennial Liverpool 06", exhibition catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 2006 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | group |
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