Born in 1962 in Italy, Gost is a self-proclaimed “conceptual contemporary” artist who’s popular Stop the Time! series of mixed media works takes comparisons of the economy of older, slower times with the hyper, instant gratification of today. He once said that, “Italy is a Republic based on work.”
He began his art career in 1994 with the studies of metaphysics and the geometry of color through experimentation in abstract art with little success. But, it wasn’t until 2008 where he began to gain notoriety in the art world when his fully realized conceptual work was presented at art fairs in Italy by artist Maurizio Cattelan. And in 2011 the Biennale di Venezia showcased an exhibit of his Old Economy works to critical claim.
His preferred materials for creating his art are physical everyday items such as shipping documents, coins, food, beer, wine, and others. He then seals these in a block of resin in order to preserve them for future generations of the next millennia to study and appreciate. One of his well known pieces, Pluri-Bolle! Percorso Nella Old Economy (The Path of the Old Economy), is a series of paper shipping manifests from 1981 and 1982, sealed in colored resin and fused together into one solid block.
