Gregorio Bacci Giagan
GIAGAN, whose real name is Gregorio Bacci, was born in Venice on August 30th 1970. Both his father Giorgio Bacci , and his uncle Edmondo Bacci , were well-known artists active as early as the1950s, especially the older brother Edmondo who was a major figure in the Venetian group of the Spatialism movement and whose works are to be found in many internationally known collections and museums. Giorgio Bacci, on the other hand, was better known by his pseudonym Baik which he adopted early on in his career in deference to his older brother.
After attending High School in Venice where he studied the Sciences, Gregorio enrolled in the faculty of Psychology at the University of Padova from where he graduated in 1998 with a degree
in Social Psychology, but even during the years given over to his studies, much of his spare time was spent in his father’s workshop/ gallery in the sestiere of DorsoDuro , right next door to what was then the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and is now the Guggenheim museum. There he learnt the first notions and techniques of what was already a growing passion and once his studies were completed, he took over the running of the atelier and dedicated himself to painting full-time. It was then that he adopted the pseudonym of GIAGAN in order break away from his illustrious forebears and begin his own career.
It is precisely for his lively, colourful GIAGAN canvases where his own very individual and original interpretation of the Venetian scene are expressed, that he is perhaps most well-known, but parallel to these works he has introduced and developed more experimental themes into his repertoire , using diverse medium and techniques ranging from the most traditional to the most modern photographic manipulations without ever abandoning work on the GIAGAN canvases
and without ever abandoning the central theme which is Venice
These latest works, examples of which can be seen below in the section “I Venexiani” and “Wox” carry the artists own name, Gegorio Bacci, perhaps with the intention of reclaiming his own identity.
He continues to work in his workshop/gallery in the sestiere of DorsoDuro in Venice’s historic centre.
Giagan’s Venice
It was Shakespeare who wrote ‘ .. all the world’s a stage… ‘ to which I add that there can be few places in the world more theatrical than Venice, the city where I was born and where I have lived throughout my life. Built through man’s genius in the middle of a lagoon, the city rises from the water, impressing all who have ever seen her with the grandeur of her buildings, the richness of her facades, the splendour of her squares, churches and wide promenades…
But this is not the venice that I paint…
There is another Venice- behind the scenes. A city with a maze of by-ways we call ‘calle’. I like to take the viewer by the hand and lead him down these little streets as they criss-cross and intersect, go straight or twist. they are mostly narrow and dark, but occasionally are shot with unexpected bolts of brillant light. Sometimes they lead us nowhere, whilst sometimes they open out onto a sunny tree-lined square or go over a crooked bridge. We might find ourselves flanking a quiet canal where the filtering light reflects like shot silk on the smooth stones, or passing beneath a gloomy underpass smelling of mould and damp. But always we come back to the light, and the buildings rising high on either side of us stretching, bending and leaning to envelope and confuse us until we are sucked into that dizziling vortex that is the city’s beating heart.
