The artist creates films that blend CGI, prosthetics, and robotics, exploring how popular entertainment forms manufacture and manipulate emotions
Opening June 3, 2026, the exhibition is organized with The Vega Foundation and features Marcon’s newest work, Krapfen—a surreal musical in which a child is tormented by articles of dancing clothing.
TORONTO — Acclaimed Italian artist Diego Marcon (b. 1985) makes his Canadian debut at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) this summer, with an exhibition of four films. Presented together, these works form a constellation of looping scenes in which tenderness, absurdity, and melancholy circulate without resolution. Marking the AGO’s first partnership with The Vega Foundation, Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy opens on June 3, 2026, in the Philip Lind Gallery on Level 1. The exhibition is co-curated by John Zeppetelli, Guest Curator, and Julia Paoli, Director and Curator, The Vega Foundation, with Kate Whiteway, Assistant Curator, The Vega Foundation.
Working with a small team of close collaborators, Marcon composes every aspect of his films—from set and lighting, to costume, sound, and script—playing with familiar tropes from the golden age of cartoons and Italian opera while subtly unmooring them from expectation.
Nestled amongst an installation of predominantly nineteenth-century Canadian and European paintings, Marcon’s camera-less animation Untitled (Head Falling 01) (2015), leads visitors towards the exhibition. Displayed on an intimate television monitor, the silent loop features a head that repeatedly drops and dangles before returning to its starting point.
The title of the exhibition refers to an 1884 painting by Ontario-born artist Paul Peel, an artist who specialized in sentimental portraits of childhood innocence. Marcon first encountered Peel’s painting The Bubble Boy while visiting the AGO in 2025, and the beloved painting, accomplished in Peel’s rigorous academic style, will be installed as part of Marcon’s exhibition.
Inside the exhibition, visitors encounter a trio of unsettling domestic scenes. Set in the family home, Marcon subverts these familiar spaces into sites of uncanny tension. A chilling and macabre musical confession, The Parents’ Room (2021), features human actors rendered with prosthetics and CGI, creating an image that feels artificial, yet strangely alive. The looping six-minute film is bookended by the arrival of a blackbird on the windowsill, while a man and his family recount a gruesome series of events through song. In Dolle (2023), a pair of animatronic moles obsessively count and recount figures in their burrow, continually disrupted by the wheezing coughs of their sick pup and ominous sounds from above ground. Never resolving, the twenty-nine-minute film is both charming and tense.
“We’re honoured to bring Diego Marcon’s work to Canada for the first time through this partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario,” says Julia Paoli, Director and Curator of The Vega Foundation. “This presentation reflects Vega’s commitment to supporting ambitious, international artistic voices and creating meaningful contexts for their work to be viewed in Canada and beyond. Having worked closely with Diego over the last several years, we’re especially proud to realize The Bubble Boy and to bring this extraordinary body of work to audiences in Toronto.”
Krapfen (2025), Marcon’s newest film, is co-commissioned by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Lafayette Anticipations, the New Museum, the Renaissance Society, and The Vega Foundation. A surreal musical comedy staged in a bright yellow bedroom, a kid, performed by dancer Violet Savage, is tormented by a pair of gloves, a foulard, a pair of trousers, and a pullover. Blending slapstick and horror, classical ballet, and contemporary choreography in a four-minute loop, the chorus of clothing implores the child to eat a snack: the German apricot jam-filled pastry called a krapfen. “Why don’t you just eat up your krapfen? It’s your favourite apricot krapfen,” the clothes taunt.
AGO Members see Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy first, beginning June 3, 2026. The exhibition opens to Annual Pass Holders and to the public on June 6, 2026, and is free with general admission.
On view through October 4, 2026, admission to Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy is always free for Ontarians under 25, Indigenous Peoples, AGO Members, and Annual Passholders. For more information on how to become a Member or Annual Passholder, visit ago.ca/membership/become-a-member.
In support of the Canada Strong Pass, the AGO is offering free or reduced admission throughout the summer for out of province visitors 24 years of age and under. More details to come at ago.ca/visit.
ABOUT DIEGO MARCON
Diego Marcon (b. 1985, Busto Arsizio, Italy) graduated from IUAV University of Arts of Venice (2012). Marcon has exhibited internationally with solo presentations including Krapfen, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2026); Prom, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2026); Krapfen, Renaissance Society, Chicago (2025); Forza Cani, Le Consortium, Dijon (2025); ToonsTunes (Four Pathetic Movements), The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, London (2025); La Gola, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2024); La Gola, Kunstverein in Hamburg (2024); Dolle, Sadie Coles HQ, London and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (both 2023); Have You Checked the Children, Kunsthalle Basel (2023); Glassa, Centro Pecci, Prato (2023); Dramoletti, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Teatro Gerolamo, Milan (2023); Monelle, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2023); and The Parents’ Room, Museo Madre, Naples (2021). He has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including Collection Exhibition of Saastamoinen Foundation, EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2025); Just Kids, Gammel Strand, Copenhagen (2025); Flowers of Romance Part II, Lodovico Corsini, Brussels (2024); Artificial Optimism, Den Frie, Copenhagen (2024); Nebula, Fondazione In Between Art Film, Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice (2024); Biennale de I’Image en Mouvement 24: A Cosmic Movie Camera, Centre d’Art Contemporian, Genève (2024); After Laughter Comes Tears, MUDAM The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (2023); The Milk of Dreams, 59th Biennale Arte, Venice (2022); and Sanguine. Luc Tuymans on Baroque, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2018). Marcon’s films have featured in festivals including Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Vienna International Film Festival; Festival du nouveau cinéma, Montreal; and BFI London Film Festival, among others. Marcon currently lives and works in Italy.
EXHIBITION CREDITS
Diego Marcon: The Bubble Boy is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and The Vega Foundation. It is co-curated by John Zeppetelli (guest curator) and Julia Paoli (Director and Curator, The Vega Foundation), with Kate Whiteway (Assistant Curator, The Vega Foundation).
Diego Marcon’s Krapfen is co-commissioned and made possible by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Lafayette Anticipations, the New Museum, the Renaissance Society, and The Vega Foundation with additional support from Sadie Coles HQ, London, and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York.
Contemporary programming at the AGO is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts
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ABOUT THE VEGA FOUNDATION
The Vega Foundation is committed to cultivating new ideas and connections through encounters with artists’ film and video. We provide critical support for artists through meaningful investments in the production of ambitious new work and the stewardship of a growing collection. Vega’s curatorial program is dedicated to exhibiting these exceptional works through collaborations with Canadian and international institutions. By expanding access, we seek to grow appreciation for moving image practices and facilitate vibrant conversations that reflect the pressing issues of our time.
ABOUT THE AGO
An architectural landmark, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is one of the largest art museums in North America. The AGO Collection of more than 120,000 works of art ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art to significant works by Indigenous and Canadian artists and European masterpieces. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, including solo exhibitions and acquisitions by diverse and underrepresented artists from around the world. When it opens in 2027, the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery will present modern and contemporary art from Toronto and the world. With its groundbreaking Annual Pass program, the AGO is one of the most affordable and accessible attractions in the GTA. Visit ago.ca to learn more.
The AGO is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts, and generous contributions from AGO Members, donors, and private-sector partners.
