Interview with: Luciano Caggianello​

August 2025

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Luciano Caggianello, born in Siena in 1959, is an artist and designer who began his career in the 1980s, working in a variety of fields: Advertising, Illustration, Graphics, and Design (industrial and car design). At the same time, he embarked on a journey of artistic research that, after initial and frequent visits to the Academy and the studios and ateliers of renowned artists from Turin and beyond, led him to explore diverse representational and visual themes, allowing him to establish a diverse national and international exhibition program. This journey has also been accompanied by the publication of several books (“Intermediario Immateriale” 2003, “Parole altrove” 2014, “Aporia e Metamorfosi dell’Arte” 2019, “Fenomenologia del Quotidiano 2020, “Pubblicità .jPig” 2021), which serve primarily as an aid to reflection and exploration of his conceptual and philosophical research.
In recent years, his exploration has essentially become a work of predominantly perceptual and conceptual synthesis, reworking all the didactic, cultural, and intellectual interactions arising from his various educational and teaching fields (from Applied Industrial Physics to Architecture, Design, and Visual Arts). 
Furthermore, this approach, identifying the artistic objective of a thematic-conceptual approach and an experimentation positioned between concrete "poverism"; and digital art, proves much more related and relevant to concepts of presentation rather than representation. Lives and works in Turin, Italy. 

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Welcome Luciano, first tell us about your background and why you chose to pursue this career.
Do you remember the first artwork that stirred something inside you?
 

Let me start by saying that, even before being an artist and a designer, I am a man, an individual, a person, and this connotation becomes as fundamental as it is inseparable from the profession one practices.
Indeed, the values and beliefs that are shaped within an individual are then inevitably transmitted to the practice of their profession.
I don't believe in those models, even artistic ones, that outline the profiles of technically excellent but humanly terrible people. In my profound convictions, the characteristics of "homo faber" and those of "homo sapiens" must coexist, align, and overlap because there is an unmistakable transfer of values between the individual and what they practice professionally.
Regarding your question, there have been no dazzling conditions or all-encompassing experiences, but rather a complex, long, and at times even arduous journey through which I have accumulated experiences, skills, practices, values, and ideas in order to filter and condense, like an elixir, the best of every event. 
I'm convinced that life, ultimately, cannot protect us, and therefore we need to organize ourselves as best we can, seeking to delve deeper, study, plan, and constantly improve. What we will save of our human integrity will not only be what we have protected, perhaps even naively, but rather what we have been able to evolve, strengthen, and progress, keeping in mind the goal of an existence in which morality and ethics are always untouchable cornerstones. As a creative, I outline aesthetic scenarios, but I want their content to also be ethical, and even if it seems like just a literal gimmick or perhaps a verbal coincidence, I want to point out that the word "ethics" is contained in the term "aesthetics". Regarding the potential emotional involvement of a work, I can tell you that, more than specific works or artists, what has most captivated me is the "intellectual climate" of the Piedmontese capital. Indeed, even if this seems like an impalpable suggestion, the city has generated and encouraged an approach to the artistic sphere and its related collateral effects. Turin has always been actively involved in the fields of
social renewal and cultural innovation, contributing to the formation of a distinct artistic consciousness.
This has never sought to replace what preceded it, but has, in fact, inherited it over time, offering a respectful and highly significant legacy and testimony. Many artistic-conceptual (but also scientific and engineering) proposals were, in fact, born and developed within the context of Turin's intellectual growth (just to name a few examples: the engine, the decimal metric system, fractals, pathogenic human anatomy, Arte Povera, etc.). Sometimes the reflection separating a declination from its origins remains subtle but
nevertheless provides elaborate support, and therefore, even if there may never be tangible confirmation of this "theory" I'd like to think that some subliminal influence may have contributed to this understanding
with the city.

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What inspires you? Where do the ideas come from? How do you develop your projects?

To paraphrase, I'm inspired by everything that doesn't glitter.
I delve deeper into the concept. If it's true that nothing is more newsworthy than the irrelevant, just as those who fail to convince seek to amaze, then I always try to pursue opposite directions, that is, I explore appropriate ways to materialize a serious thought dedicated to persuasion.
I'm drawn to the recognition of intellect, knowledge, and culture, and I constantly strive to implement it because it remains the only antidote to obviousness and indifference. Therefore, I develop my projects through a rational and cultural subsistence that rehabilitates every topic, provided it always manages to interface with a moment of appropriate reflection, even if ironic.

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Can you define the word "art" according to your personal view?

I don't believe there's a precise way to define a vision or concept of art, even in a general sense. Art is certainly a powerful inner state that drives us to represent important concepts; it's a sort of collective memory filtered through the approval of the individual artist. It's an inner need and desire that seeks to rework symbolism, everyday life, and other elements, translating them into a place of well-being. It's the obstinacy of a dedication, almost a prophetic "magic" that should lead to ethical improvement by indicating an evolutionary path.

 

What meaning do you give to your works?

More than meaning, I'd speak of attitude and approach. For my works, this aspect of significance is realized in the sphere of reflection, that is, the ability and possibility of establishing a dialogue, albeit sometimes remotely, with those who observe, share, or perhaps criticize them.
I live immersed in a sort of recollection-intoxication that doesn't just represent a past or nostalgic moment, but rather a memory understood as a moment of daily life recently experienced. I therefore carry every type of reflective thought around so that it can materialize and take shape in what I might call the luxury of visualization.
I consider this condition a temporal metamorphosis that may not change anything in cosmogonic terms, but it certainly changes my psyche, allowing me to decipher those tiny "existential asteroid" that are sometimes not even perceived and end up in the black holes of life. I, however, try to extrapolate them, and this investigation helps me live better and even smile.

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Is creativity innate, or do you have to work at it until the ideas come out?

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Let's start by saying that creativity is a process that arises only through methodology and is therefore not innate. Certain prerequisites certainly exist that are revealed and identified in predisposition, imagination, and certain signs of talent. However, once these are recognized, they must be limited and developed through method, dedication, passion, and study. Only subsequently does the process defined as creativity take shape and become fully understood.
In fact, I've always believed that art shouldn't be democratic in the sense that art can't be improvised and can't be enjoyed by everyone, just as not everyone is a nuclear physicist. It's thought that art, seemingly easy to manage, can become everyone's domain, and that a little imagination is enough to overcome all other shortcomings. Today, with the advent of social media, which offers widespread availability and total visibility, as well as with the help of specific software and programs, anyone can
dedicate themselves to art and call themselves an artist. Personally, I continue to think that just as I can't call myself a plumber just because I turn on a tap every morning, neither can one consider oneself an artist without predisposition and an adequate background, both technical and, above all, cultural.

 

 

What is the meaning or creative motivation behind your work?

It has a multiple meaning because I also attribute to it the sedimentation of ethical, aesthetic, philosophical, social, and communicative parameters. For many, the sole (or sometimes the primary) motivation is simply to achieve recognition, success, and perhaps fame.
I have none of this, even though I've been involved in art for almost forty years, and therefore, by some current standards, I would be a failure, a loser. But I don't feel frustrated, much less afflicted, because I consider the defeated to be unfortunate heroes, and for my part, I consider only this last noun valid in terms of perspective: the misfortune that has prevented adequate opportunities. For the rest, I'm convinced that eventual defeat (assuming it can truly be defined as such...) becomes a necessity because it
helps strengthen behavioral ethics and predisposes the individual to wisdom.
Personally, I work for History, not for the market. Indeed, it is precisely the first that teaches us how contemporaneity (which is always contemporary for every historical period) and easy success often become a completely irrelevant parameter on an artist's career and historical recognition. To give just one example, the painter Boldini, a contemporary of Van Gogh, enjoyed unparalleled and immeasurable financial success, but History, compared to that everyday reality and evidence, has decreed a rewarding career and privileged recognition only for Van Gogh's work.

 

 

We are at the end of this short interview, would you like to add something about your artistic research ?

How did you find the collaboration with our gallery?

Without being verbose, I can say that despite living an imperfect life, my artistic journey aims to be a project of its own, a multifaceted modulation of approaches that, with kindness and appropriate contemplation, can offer an interesting perspective on the cosmic script of the entire community.
Without hesitation, I can describe the collaboration with your gallery as excellent. I have found professionalism, expertise, and dedication to a work that is not only informative and curatorial, but also focused on careful selection and scouting, an activity that almost no one in the sector is interested in anymore.

 

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