My father always wanted a son. He had me instead, but we share the same name... in fact, on paper I am masculine. When I moved to Rome some ten years ago, I was even called to do my military service, so I
reported to the caserma in high heels and a low-cut blouse. My father and I have never been very close, I think it is because he sees a lot of himself in me [...] I heard about Roberto Cuoghi and a piece he was doing in which he became his father. He gained weight, grew a beard, got grey hair and
engaged in the same day-to-day activities as his elderly father. The
documentation photos depict a man, the same age as me weathered and overweight, barely recognizable as 20-something ... It was some of the most intriguing work I had ever come across. It's the kind of art piece that follows the artist wherever he goes, never letting him drop the performance or take off the mask; he's a perpetual artwork. Roberto Cuoghi's father died recently and yet Roberto is still enacting this artwork, living his life as a 29 year-old 60-year-old. So what now? Does Roberto indeed become his father, taking over where his father's life ended? It's very private and conflicted to become one's father. I think about this often as my own stubborn father is emasculated by endless tests, treatments, surgeries and hospital stays
caused by the aggressive cancer in his system. I wonder what Roberto's father thought about his son turning into him—literally. I take comfort in
thinking that his father must have been proud and honored by this artwork, and I think my father is comforted by the realization that
I am the son he never had.
— Michele Maccarone, “Sherman Magazine,” n° 1, 2003

Selected solo exhibitions: 2003: GAMC, Bergamo; 2002: Massimo De Carlo, Milan.
Selected group exhibitions: 2002: Nuovo Spazio Italiano, MART, Trento; Exit, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Verso il Futuro, Museo del Corso, Rome; Manifesta 4, Francoforte; 2001: In Fumo, GAMC, Bergamo; Tirana Biennial 1; The Gift, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena; 2000: Play, Openspace, Milan; Fai da te, Sparwasser HQ, Berlin; Fuoriuso, Pescara; Globale Positionen, Museum in Progress, Vienna; Guarene Arte 99, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d’Alba, Italy.