Stefano Calligaro is an Italian visual artist based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His heterogeneous work plays into play a host of strategies that question with irony and anarchic sensitivity the essence of art and the artist’s role in contemporary society.His current textual work ("Poatry," as he likes to call it) made of textual "Poetricks", "Poetrickal-materializations," and "Self-portraits" challenges established social and cultural codes through visual simplicity and the (meta)use of language. Posters, books, flyers, balloons, postcards, and other ephemeral printed material and wallpaint installations are the vehicles used to convey Stephen's verbal defects to the world and welcome the viewer into a new mallable territory made to be explored. The attempt to engage the viewer in an active enjoyment of the artwork is evident in Calligaro's Poetrickal-materializations (literal print versions of Digital Poetricks) where the physical artwork itself is "materialized" in collaboration with other people such as art publishers, galleries, independent art spaces, collectors, institutions, or simply art enthusiasts. art ai which are entrusted with the task of producing and distributing, without specific instructions given by the artist, the physical work itself. Each "poetic materialization" therefore assumes an innumerable variety of forms and directions, making the digital Poetry of Stefano eclectic and tangible. This participatory quality of the work not only helps to demystify the importance of the artist, but also allows Stefan to explore new visual and conceptual territories by freely questioning the essence of art in a society that constantly provides us with cultural and intellectual models to follow.
