EXHIBITION GUIDE ENG

PART Piazza Cavour 26, 47921 Rimini (RN)

INFO [email protected] +39 0541 793879 – are essentially intended as a physical ne- 3. CARSTEN HÖLLER HALL 1 cessity and the manifestation of a state of Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1961. He lives mind. The work at the entrance of the PART and works between Stockholm and Biriwa emerged from this context. It comes from in Ghana. the temporary floor of Cantiere1 / Terrazzo After graduating in agronomy from the 000, created in for the SS. Trinità University of Kiel in 1993 with a delle Monache with the Matronage of the on insect behaviour, Carsten Höller has Donnaregina Foundation for Contempo- been one of the most interesting artists on rary Arts / MADRE. A great architectural the international scene since the 1990s. His : a dialogue between Piazza work is aimed at identifying new possibili- Cavour, the back garden and the Federico ties for the perception of existence through Fellini International Museum. Roberto Coda a rigorous method of investigation that Zabetta trained in at the Art Institute, comes close to the scientific one, and whi- and later at the Brera in . He ch reflects on the various forms that natural worked as an assistant to Aldo Mondino evolutionary forces can take on in their from 1995 to 2005. relationship with human emotivity. By invi- ting the public to undergo highly controlled 2. ALESSANDRO BUSCI experiences of participation (psychological Born in Milan, 1971, where he lives and and perceptive experiments, which are works today. often also playful), the ‘sensory mechani- Busci’s pictorial research is characterised sms’ and structures designed by Höller are by constant experimentation with uncon- in fact able to stimulate states of attraction, ventional techniques and supports such as excitement, doubt and confusion in the enamels and acids on steel, iron, alumi- individual user. Over time, the ever-increa- At the entrance. manent mural work created by the artist in nium and copper, as well as his attention sing degree of experimentation of his works DAVID TREMLETT 2020 for the entrance of the PART, together to the materiality and concreteness of the has led the artist to create complex environ- Born in St Austell, UK, in 1945. He lives and with the participants to the San Patrignano pictorial and calligraphic stroke. Capable mental installations that also include plants works in Bovingdon, UK. workshops. of translating landscapes and memories and animals with the aim of facilitating the After graduating in from the of cities into evocative atmospheres and various forms of interactivity that involve the Birmingham College of Art and the Royal 1. ROBERTO CODA ZABETTA urban visions through the search for colour whole range of our senses. College of Art in , active since the Born in Biella in 1975, he lives and works (with decidedly expressionist tones and end of the Sixties, David Tremlett establi- in Milan. a magmatic consistency), Busci’s works 4. GIANLUCA DI PASQUALE shed himself internationally in the 1980s He made his own first pictorial experiments seem to want to launch a sort of hymn to Born in 1971 in Rome, he currently lives and thanks to his wall drawings: large murals around 1999, in a small studio where he Futurism, but with less heroic emphasis on works in Milan. painted directly on different surfaces, ma- began to paint a series of faces portrayed change than that promulgated by Filippo Gianluca Di Pasquale studied painting at the king interventions, permanent or temporary, in the foreground, initially using black and Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. His subjects all Academy of Rome and attended the Aca- both in museums and in public or private white, and colour only from 2004 onwards. belong to the peripheral urban landscape. demy of Fine Arts in Granada for a year. His spaces, which reflect the deepest and most Demonstrating a strong and recognisable Stations, construction sites, industrial wa- artistic production plays out on a figurative articulated connections between art and stroke right from the start, these works rehouses and stadiums are all immortalised pictorial level, with particular attention to the architecture. His wall drawings constitute seem to express a single flow, a gesture in twilight, as if to underline the insistence landscape element, dotted with archi- the best known and most consistent part on the verge of shattering the image itself. on the poetics of the suburbs, typical of tectural details, figures in the distance and of his production, and are characterised by In 2017, his practice changed radically, Mario Sironi and many American pain- plants painted with precise, and rhythmic the use of colour pastels spread freehand going beyond the intimate dimension of the ters of the 1930s. A painter and architect, brushstrokes within broad white spaces that on the surfaces. Among the most recent studio to open up to the outside in search Alessandro Busci has collaborated with the constitute places of meeting and mediation interventions are the church of Coazzolo in of a dialogue with the territory, architectu- Atelier Mendini in Milan since 1997, with between nature and civilisation. Forever in Piedmont, the Bloomberg London Building, re and landscape. This gave rise to major which he carries out projects in architectu- search of harmony and balance between the Santa Chiara Complex in Bari, and a site-specific installations (i.e. specifically re, decoration and exhibition , such an anthropocentric and a natural stance, fresco in the deconsecrated chapel of the designed for space) where abstract layers as that at the Museo Teatrale alla Scala and his most recent influences include Henri Relais San Maurizio, in the Italian province of colour – spread in a whirling movement the Palazzo Reale in Milan. Matisse, Pierre Bonnard and Henri Rousse- of Cuneo. From the ceiling, down is the per- of brushes, spatulas and compressed air au. Speaking of his works, the artist states: “Usually my work starts out from a photo- graphic image, and in transferring it to the HALL 2 painting, I carry out a sort of subtraction of the landscape from it. This operation beco- mes painting itself; an echo of the landsca- pe remains, a sort of ghost that is present throughout my .”

5. EMILIO ISGRÒ Born in 1937, in Barcellona di Sicilia (ME). He lives and works in Milan. A poet, and conceptual painter and also a novelist, playwright and director, Emilio Isgrò created one of the most revolutionary and original works as part of the so-called Second Vanguards of the 1960s. Interna- tionally known for the art of ‘erasure’ that began around 1964 – which he himself defines as a philosophical and anthropolo- gical phenomenon that reinforces commu- nication where it apparently denies it – this act of eliminating words and images from a printed book, not in order to destroy them but to preserve them, must not be conside- 6. YAN PEI-MING 7. red merely a metaphor in his practice, but a Born in Shanghai in 1960. Today he lives Born in Genoa in 1969. She lives and works real and concrete action. Influenced by the and works in Dijon, . in Los Angeles. liveliness of Visual Poetry that was sprea- Growing up in the delicate climate of the In Vanessa Beecroft’s performances, the ding throughout at the time, the Sicilian Chinese revolution during which radical ci- bodies of more or less naked young women artist began to work first on excerpts from vil and political changes marked his youth, appear isolated and frozen beyond an invi- newspapers in which he drew out meanings in 1981 Yan Pei-Ming moved to Dijon, Fran- sible barrier, and their mutism produces the extraneous to the context, and then moved ce, where he built his artistic career over the strange effect of ‘bouncing’ the onlookers’ on to texts of existing covers, encyclopa- following two decades. Internationally re- gaze back onto them. The work here exhibi- edias, manuscripts, books, maps and films, cognised for his immense portraits inspired ted represents Beecroft herself: she created always with the intention of renewing the by Chinese cultural history and the tradition it during her research trip to South Sudan meaning, seeking a balance between the of Western portraiture, the French-Chinese in 2006. It depicts a twentieth-century verbal and the iconic through the act of artist mainly depicted famous icons and Virgin as she breastfeeds children who are manipulation. historical figures (such as Mao Zedong, not her own. Her images are always driven Bruce Lee and Barack Obama) who had a by specific choreographies: perspective, profound influence on him and his contem- focal point and symmetry are elements poraries. The artist managed to exploit the that haunt the artist’s work, and that are pop halo of the subjects he chooses, trying directed across an invisible chessboard to present a communicative image that is in space. Beecroft’s artistic research is, in meaningful in every place and time. Carried fact, entirely imbibed in a sense of classici- out with energy and imagination, Pei-Ming’s sm, with particular sensitivity to the Italian expressionistic portraits are made up of Renaissance tradition, which is a substantial long, fast, almost violent brushstrokes and source of nourishment for her poetics. After a predominantly monochrome palette with graduating from the Brera Academy of Mi- occasional touches of dark red, using a te- lan in 1993, from a very young age Vanessa chnique that relies on Chinese watercolour Beecroft showed a propensity towards the but also classic European oil painting. compositional construction and staging of tableaux vivants (or living pictures) that deal set was directed towards experimentation later also using pastels, watercolours and Cucchi, and Mimmo with issues concerning women, the gaze, in the field of sculpture, seeing potential in oils. He then began to paint directly onto Paladino, the Florentine artist desire, the female body and its interaction ceramics for a new interpretation of painted walls, creating his first oil canvases, in whi- is one of the exponents of the Transavan- with the fickle world of fashion, denouncing sculpture. Between 1985 and 1989 they col- ch the choice of a vivid and intense colour guardia, an Italian artistic movement based the complex and thorny relationships that laborated as researchers with the Coopera- that defines the entire work surface (be it on a project by in the these issues trigger in our society. “I feel tiva Ceramica di Imola, developing interests the wall of a room or a very small support) second half of the 1970s with a view to performance to be more attitudinal because in the world of design (they used to frequent becomes the basis on which to undertake overcoming the abstract-conceptual lan- it is conceptual; I have a vision of an image the Spazio Dilmos in Milan), and also began a very personal research path, to the point guage of the Neo-avant-garde movements before I move on to its implementation,” to create works for established artists, in- that he defines himself as “one who writes through a return to tradition and figuration, says the artist in a 2019 interview. cluding Ugo La Pietra, Alessandro Mendini, poetry with his hands covered in paint”: an drawing on expressionist approaches with Jan Knap and Arman. Executive perfectio- expression of clear research towards an a focus on painting, colour and technique, 8. GIAN MARCO MONTESANO nism and detached irony characterise abstract lyrical sphere. reappraising such elements in a contem- Born in in 1949, he lives and works their early production in thin polychrome porary key. After completing his studies in Bologna. majolica ceramics, in which their pictorial/ 11. at the Academy of Fine Arts in in Gian Marco Montesano studied at the decorative virtuosity is already evident: one Born in 1948 in Paduli (BN). Lives and works 1969, Chia moved to Rome for a decade, Salesian Seminary of Valdocco, in Tu- that through compositional surrealism and between Paduli, Rome and Milan. and then to New York for twenty years. rin, where his initiation into painting took formal hyperrealism becomes a metaphor Together with , Enzo After various travel experiences in Asia place. His strong artistic and intellectual for the generalised trash of contemporary Cucchi, Nicola De Maria and Sandro Chia, and Europe, he then converted to figurati- predisposition led him in the 1970s to move society, and specifically of some of its the artist from the Campania region Mimmo vism, creating large-format works in which to Bologna, and later to , where he cultural and artistic models. In 1997 they Paladino is one of the exponents of the heroic male figures (which also return as encountered many intellectuals, including abandoned the use of majolica to devote Transavanguardia, an Italian artistic move- subjects in his bronze ) become Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard. His themselves to experimentation with ce- ment based on a project by Achille Bonito the expression of an intense, decisive and first self-taught works are reproductions of ramic materials of industrial derivation, al- Oliva in the second half of the 1970s with dynamic pictorial stroke. Chia’s figurati- sacred images and Virgin Marys enlarged lowing their works to conquer a higher level a view to overcoming the abstract-con- ve repertoire thus introduces a series of and revisited in a postmodern key. Monte- of physical presence and a more objective ceptual language of the Neo-avant-garde iconographic references to his paintings sano also often uses images from the First rendering of their chosen subjects. movements through a return to tradition taken from ancient and , brin- World War to reinterpret the dramatic years and figuration, drawing on expressionist ging back the strength of the narrative and of the period and address themes such as 10. NICOLA DE MARIA approaches with a focus on painting, colour the enchantment of the dream in his unruly death and conflict, yet with the intention of Born in Foglianise (BN) in 1954. He lives and and technique, reappraising such elements treatment of form and colour. recounting history, reproducing its memory works in Turin. in a contemporary key. In Mimmo Paladino’s and creating new narratives. Alongside the- Together with Francesco Clemente, Sandro artistic research, images recur that refer to 13. GIUSEPPE GALLO se representations, there are also images Chia, and Mimmo Paladi- an arcane and primitive universe, where Born in Rogliano (CS) in 1954. Lives and of children, portraits of women, landscapes no, the artist from the Campania region shapes are translated into elegant and sim- works in Rome. and cityscapes of a cinematographic nature Nicola De Maria is one of the exponents plified signs. His works refer to a wide range The son of a painter-restorer, Giuseppe that the artist paints with his unmistakable of the Transavanguardia, an Italian artistic of archaeological, mythological and styli- Gallo studied architecture and learned the post-realist style. A passionate theatre movement based on a project by Achil- stic sources including Egyptian, Etruscan, importance of materials from his father. director, his Compagnia Florian (based in le Bonito Oliva in the second half of the Greek-Roman, Early Christian and Romane- Originally from Calabria, in 1976 he moved Pescara), has presented performances in 1970s with the intention of overcoming the sque art. Between 1978 and 1980, the artist to Rome to work in the former Cerere pasta Paris, Hungary and all over Italy. abstract-conceptual language of the Neo created monochrome paintings in primary factory in Via degli Ausoni, one of the oldest avant-garde movements through a return to colours, with which he combined geometric factories in the city, which from 1905 had 9. BERTOZZI & CASONI tradition and figuration, drawing on expres- elements and salvaged objects, while in supplied pasta and flour to the capital until Company founded by Giampaolo Bertozzi sionist approaches with a focus on painting, 1985 his interests shifted towards sculptural 1960, only to then be turned into a place (Borgo da Tossignano - BO, 1957) and by colour and technique, reappraising such production (often installation-oriented) in of research and encounter among artists Stefano Dal Monte Casoni (Lugo di Roma- elements in a contemporary key. After his bronze, aluminium, painted wood, copper over the following decade. In the 1980s, gna - RA, 1961) in Imola, in 1980. studies in medicine in Turin, pursued up to a and iron. Gallo thus became part of the San Loren- After their initial training at the Istituto specialisation in neurology, Nicola De Maria zo Group, also called the ‘Nuova Scuola Statale d’Arte per la Ceramica in Faenza, decided to dedicate himself to art. From a 12. SANDRO CHIA Romana’, a reality that – along with Arte and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in brief experience in 1975 linked to photo- Born in 1946 in Florence. Lives and works Povera and Transavanguardia – represents Bologna, Giampaolo Bertozzi and Stefano graphy, the artist moved on to an assiduous between Miami, Rome and Montalcino (SI). the third mainstay of Italian contemporary Dal Monte Casoni’s vocation from the out- production of pencil drawings on paper, Together with Francesco Clemente, Enzo art in terms of role and importance. Gallo dedicated to the definition of a new way of of the transition from analogue to digital. La- centaurs, which rank among the artist’s installations that stage the drama of exi- understanding the painted image, focu- ter his work expanded to include drawing, favourite subjects. stence and its inevitable end, questioning sing on the recovery and use of traditional sculpture and installation, embracing an the human perspectives of mortality and techniques such as encaustic, oil on canvas organic dimension open to comparison 17. LOREDANA LONGO how to exorcise death through medicine, and patinated bronzes. However, the artist with the surrounding reality. At the centre Born in 1967 in Catania, city where she lives religion, procreation or the exaltation of ma- is best known for his more explicit use of of Cecchini’s work there in fact lies a new and works. teriality. The titles of his works – which over figuration, both in the form of fragments interpretation of spatiality, always accom- After graduating in painting from the time have also taken the form of painting and citation from the past. His paintings panied by an idea of nature considered in Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, Loredana and drawing cycles – are an integral part of are in fact animated by brightly coloured its constant structural and metaphysical Longo has always sought what she calls “an his work, and much of the meaning of his images and symbols in which the use of transience: physical space is thus interpre- aesthetic of destruction,” meant as a me- creations derives from the title itself. geometric shapes and meticulous figurative ted as something biological, organic and taphor for life itself and the rifts that afflict details stands out against largely abstract vital, yet at the same time rationally structu- our society. It is precisely the decay that 19. ENZO CUCCHI backgrounds. red. His research and constant experimen- occurs with the passing of time that is an Born in 1949 in Morro d’Alba (AN), he lives tation in the use of materials such as plastic, intrinsic and fundamental part of her works, and works between Rome and Ancona. 14. IGOR MITORAJ cellulose and rubber (silicone, polyuretha- which include photography and site-speci- One of the most original and prolific artists Born in Oederan, , 1944, died in ne and urethane) also allows the artist to fic installations, also involving the use of ce- on the contemporary art scene, together Paris, France, in 2014. demonstrate how physical phenomena and ment, glass, marble, clay and more recently with Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, Born in Germany to a Polish mother and natural systems are able to translate into a ceramics. Starting out from current and Nicola De Maria and Mimmo Paladino, he a French father, he attended the art high stratified order of semantic relations, so as political topics, Longo’s research presup- was one of the representatives of the Tran- school in Bielsko-Biala and later the Aca- to detect the invisible processes of a syn- poses a change of key that, in destruction, savanguardia, an Italian artistic movement demy of Fine Arts in Krakow, following the thesis between nature and culture, science finds that sudden transformation into based on a project by Achille Bonito Oliva courses of the painter, set designer and and aesthetics. something new, ready to take shape within in the second half of the 1970s with a view theatre director . In 1968 an ongoing cycle. Be they shattered plates, to overcoming the abstract-conceptual lan- he moved to Paris where he enrolled in the 16. LUCA PIGNATELLI deformed clay pipes, interventions in the guage of the Neo-avant-garde movements École des Beaux-Arts, adopting a tech- Born in 1962 in Milan, where he lives domestic space or in family tensions, or through a return to tradition and figuration, nique of plastic representation that drew and works. Persian carpets onto which iconic phrases, drawing on expressionist approaches with inspiration from a repertoire of forms taken In 1980 Luca Pignatelli enrolled in the Facul- Western sayings and populist slogans are a focus on painting, colour and technique, from Greek-Roman antiquity: here his refe- ty of Architecture at the Politecnico di Mi- engraved with a blowtorch, the Sicilian ar- reappraising such elements in a contem- rences were Praxiteles, Scopas and Phidias. lano, living right through the period marked tist’s works stand out for their extraordinary porary key. For him, painting provides an Returning to Paris after a year’s stay in Mexi- by the insights of the theorist and academic communicative power, capable of touching expressive medium through which to bring co, he devoted himself permanently to the Aldo Rossi. Spurred on by the idea of the on delicate subjects such as explosions in about the coexistence of classical sym- definition of a sculptural language in which sedimentary growth of history, the artist the Middle East and dictatorships. bolism or an oneiric matrix with a series fallen and fragmented giants, mutilated bu- saw a concatenation of elements and forms of forms, concepts and materials that are sts, blindfolded and cracked heads are the in painting attributable to different eras. 18. DAMIEN HIRST manifested both in physical space and on subjects chosen to bear dramatic witness His works feed on a deferred time, that of Born in Bristol, UK, 1965. Today, he lives and works using canvas, mosaic, ceramic and to the workings of time, and to recount the images that live on temporal stratifications, works between London, Gloucestershire bronze: all media the artist has experimen- loss of identity and points of reference of annulling the iconographic and linear and Devon. ted with over the course of his career. contemporary man. evolution of styles. Over three decades, The son of a mechanic and an amateur the artist has in fact collected a heteroge- artist, Damien Hirst studied at the 20. YAN PEI-MING 15. LORIS CECCHINI neous archive of reproductions in which in Leeds, before moving to London as a See n. 6 Born in Milan in 1969, where he currently figurative signs of ancient and modern eras construction worker. In 1986 he enrolled lives and works. may be recognised. A painter capable of in the fine arts course at the prestigious 21. GIOVANNI IUDICE “I developed my creative language around dealing with large works, Pignatelli works on Goldsmiths College, and in 1988 worked Born in 1970 in Gela (CL), city where he lives notions of object, model and architectu- recovered supports such as hemp canvas, on the organisation and curatorship of and works. re. Often the work refers in different ways wood, iron, assembled paper and recycled Freeze, a controversial group show known A self-taught painter and drawer, Giovanni to the idea of inhabiting space.” After his tarpaulins from goods convoys, pursuing a to have been the springboard not only for Iudice has always stood out for his remar- studies in painting at the Brera Academy in poetic form strongly linked to the concepts Hirst himself, but for an entire generation of kable technical skill, which allows him to Milan, completed in 1994, Loris Cecchini of time and memory that feeds on images British artists then referred to as the Young analyse and record objects, people, situa- immediately began to take an interest in of Greek and Roman statues, marble busts, British Artists (YBAs). In the late 1980s, Hirst tions and natural phenomena with almost photography, fully experiencing the period emperors on horseback, nymphs and began to produce complex sculptures and bureaucratic detachment. At the heart of his development – characterised by his photographic quality and the prevalent use of the artist’s early works, where bright they could maintain privacy during the cre- attention to detail and a heightened sense of tones that vary from grey, to black and coloured paint is squeezed directly from ation of their individual contributions. of realism – there is always a human being white, with occasional hints of colour. the tube onto the canvas and then wor- represented in his/her daily life through the ked with a spatula. After settling in Paris in 27. PIETRO RUFFO use of pencil drawings and oil paintings, 24. MONA HATOUM 1948, Riopelle then took part in the informal Born in Rome in 1978, where he lives following what for the artist is an expressive Born in 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon. experiences of Tachisme, where an ab- and works. vocation aimed at investigating the multiple Currently she lives and works in London. stract painting is spread with rich mixtures After graduating in architecture in Rome nuances of reality, forever with a sensitive Mona Hatoum was born to a Palesti- of colour to form patches of material that in 2005, Pietro Ruffo won a scholarship to and scrupulous eye. His paintings depict nian family in Beirut in 1952. During a visit translate into a dynamic landscape form. Columbia University in New York in 2011. His the people and environments that surround to London in 1975, the outbreak of the artistic production, deeply linked to the ba- him in his native Sicily with extreme objecti- Lebanese Civil War prevented her to return 26. JAKE AND DINOS CHAPMAN, GEORGE sic elements of his training as an architect, vity, over recent years paying particular to her homeland. The artist completed her CONDO, PAUL MCCARTHY is articulated through drawings, collages, attention to refugees, foreign citizens and studies in London at the Byam Shaw School Dinos Chapman was born in Cheltenham, watercolours, sculptures and installations illegal immigrants. Thanks to the delicacy of Art and the Slade School of Art. With her UK, in 1962, and Jake Chapman, born in that reflect on the sense of freedom– a and depth that distinguish his works, Iudice first performances, she addressed themes London in 1966 – the city where both artists principle that the artist investigates through elaborates a reality that strongly characteri- such as gender, race, and the relation- live and work. Condo was born in Concord, subjects taken from liberal themes, political ses the present and in particular that of the ship between politics and the individual, USA, in 1957, and today he lives and works history and the implications of colonisation Italian coasts. while since the early 1990s she has mainly in New York. McCarthy was born in Salt – and on political, moral and social issues, produced installations and sculptures with Lake City, USA, in 1945. He now lives and leading the viewer to rethink the tensions 22. ENZO CUCCHI different types of materials. In particular, the works in Los Angeles. of the present and the past in ethical terms, See n. 19 presence of geometric shapes and grids In March 2006, Jake and Dinos Chapman, and sometimes the unresolved issues in her work refers to the systems used to George Condo and Paul McCarthy – four of between different peoples. Each of Ruffo’s 23. ZHANG XIAOGANG exercise control within modern society. In the most interesting established artists on works originates from a meticulous design Born in 1958 in Kunming, China. He lives 2011 she was awarded the prestigious Joan the international contemporary art scene where the paper is scored, often passing and works in Beijing. Miró Prize by the Joan Miró Foundation in – were invited to work together by an Ame- from two- to three- dimensionality, and After graduating from the Sichuan Aca- and, in 2017, the 10th Hiroshima rican curator. The result was an art project where the stratification from multiple visual demy of Fine Arts in 1982, Zhang Xiao- Art Prize. In 2019 she was awarded the pre- titled Meet the Artists: an explicit, ironic and semantic readings refers to the sense gang designed sets and costumes before stigious Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo. reference to the Beatles album of 1964 and of civil commitment that the artist manages devoting himself fully to painting. Deeply to the homage-outrage that ten years later, to convey with an investigation that starts influenced by historical events– first and 25. JEAN-PAUL RIOPELLE the Californian avant-garde collective of from broad universal themes and continues, foremost the Chinese cultural revolution, Born in Montreal in 1923, he died in The Residents dedicated to it. through filters, on specular and similar which he experienced at a young age Saint-Antoine-de-l’Isle-aux-Grues, The project involved the creation of four en- semantic and linguistic levels. and the imagery of which represented the Canada, in 2002. gravings and eight paintings (four large-for- starting point of his research – and by the Jean-Paul Riopelle studied painting with mat works and four smaller ones) over the 28. PIETRO RUFFO Surrealist movement, since 1985, Xiaogang Henri Bisson and in 1943 enrolled in the course of a year. Each work – according See n. 27 has inspired artistic movements that explo- École du Meuble in Montreal. Among the to a sequence arranged and agreed in ad- re the behaviour of the individual within the most internationally recognised Cana- vance in such a way that each artist would 29. MIMMO PALADINO Chinese community. After a series of trips dian artists of his generation, in 1945 he be the first to start two canvases and one See n. 11 abroad, in 1993 he began to paint his Bloo- established a deep friendship with his engraving in rotation – was then sent to the dlines series – perhaps his most famous – teacher Paul-Emile Borduas and several various studios (in London, Los Angeles and 30. ACHILLE PERILLI which recounts family, social and collective Canadian avant-garde artists who were New York respectively) so that it might be Born in Rome in 1927. Lives and works relationships in China through group part of the group called ‘Les Automates’, completed, until it was considered ‘fini- in Orvieto. portraits inspired by images of the Revo- formed between the 1940s and 1950s in shed’. This procedure echoes the artistic Considered one of the great protagonists of lution. The family, in the broadest sense, is France and Canada in the wake of Surrealist medium and the game known as cadavre abstraction in Italy, at the age of 20 Achille in fact portrayed repeatedly by the artist, Automatism, a method of artistic creation exquis (‘Exquisite Corpse’) used by the Sur- Perilli joined the Forma Group, founded in almost as if to create an infinite and fictitious in which the artist suppresses conscious realists around the twenties, with the caveat Rome in 1947 with the intention of imple- genealogy of ancestors and descendants control over the decision-making process, that each participant could only see the menting structured but unrealistic art that whose features can only be distinguished allowing the unconscious mind to take over. final result of the individual chain participa- favoured form and sign in their essential by almost imperceptible differences. His From this derives that spontaneity that is at tions. To this end, the Chapman brothers, meaning. Standing out by virtue of their paintings are characterised by a marked the basis of the lyrical-abstract language who shared their studio, built a wall so that lively and brilliant chromaticism yet bound within two-dimensional forms, Perilli’s works of Analytic Painting (a pictorial movement are accompanied by rigorous theoretical developed in the 1970s with the intent of HALL 3 reflections, nourished by the liveliness of analysing the material components of pain- his interests (numerous collaborations with ting – such as paint and canvas – and the set designers, architects and musicians) relationship between the material itself and and by the study of the European historical the artist), Pinelli adopted stylistic choices avant-garde. Carrying out an investigation that led him towards a destructuring of the revolving around form in relation to space painting to work on the surface and spaces. (meant as a place of tension between His works are in fact characterised by the geometrical structures and organic forms, abandonment of the canvas, in favour of the arising from imaginative activity), the use of materials that convey a high tactile artist investigates the perception of reality quality (flannel and velvet), and are made up between the unconscious and the rational, of the combination of several pictorial ele- between lyrical form and geometric space, ments, such as geometric and monochrome while combining the various essences of shapes that follow a predetermined path, abstraction. giving rise to his so-called ‘broadcasting’ technique where the painting, reduced to 31. IVA LULASHI fragments, is placed on the wall to mimic Born in 1988 in Tirana, Albania. She lives the gesture of the sower, in a synthesis and works in Milan. between space and painting. After graduating from the Academy of 33. GIANNI POLITI enjoyment of art within the urban context, Fine Arts in Venice, Iva Lulashi undertook Born in Rome in 1986, where he lives creating connections with the social fabric a research path in the field of painting. Her and works. and forming relationships between public, work starts from a careful observation and With a background in philosophical studies private, political and economic institutions), selection of set photos, traces, details and and inspired by the Greek classics, for the from the second half of the 1970s Alberto stills taken from films, documentaries and Roman Gianni Politi the action of painting Garutti explored the themes underpinning other moving-image media. This is how is not a gesture but a research that helps the practice of art itself, as well as the current themes such as religion and politics him over time to understand the act itself narrative and immaterial dimension of the as well as issues related largely to Commu- intrinsic to the pictorial medium. His artistic work. After graduating in architecture from nist propaganda in Albania and the public practice is closely linked to autobio- the Politecnico di Milano in 1971, over the dimension of ‘righteous’ socialist living graphical events that he elaborates using following years the artist was invited to hold are incorporated into erotic moments and a traditional canvas support. Residues, solo exhibitions in galleries in Milan, Brescia scenes of private life. Starting from a range scraps, distortions and fragments are thus and Rome. In those early projects, there of images collected online, the artist tries to the material base through which Politi crea- was already a clear attempt to establish an reinvent a visual language that is custo- tes new works starting from the remains of open dialogue between artwork, spectator mised by adding extraneous elements, the previous ones. Like kaleidoscopes, his and public space, aimed at defining a form reworked pictorially. The image thus takes paintings are forms that are recomposed of autonomous and personal re-elaboration shape autonomously, creating a tension before the gaze of the observer. In fact, the of the conceptual and figurative matrix that and a short circuit of unexpected overlaps artist has devised a method that he himself had characterised the previous generation. through which Lulashi aims to create a form defines a process of “reuse of materials” A professor of painting at Brera for over of representation that moves away from in which, alongside a calculated schedule, twenty years (until 2013), Garutti has always reality if possible, yet without reaching an random events come into play, which gene- entrusted a functional role to the caption, entirely surreal dimension. rated during the work in the studio phase. drawing on the tradition of Conceptual Art, in which the title transforms the object 32. PINO PINELLI 34. ALBERTO GARUTTI into a work, shifting its content from the Born in Catania in 1928, currently he lives Born in 1948 in Galbiate (LC). He lives and logical-linguistic to the sentimental sphere. and works in Milan. works in Milan. Often consisting of a short text in which his After training in Catania, Pino Pinelli moved Considered one of the major Italian own dedication may always be sensed, the to Milan in 1963, attracted by the presence exponents of Public Art (an artistic mo- caption is characterised by a wide range of of an artistic centre. Among the masters vement focused on the presentation and formats, all capable of stimulating empa- thic participation on the part of the reader/ animated films, continuing his obsessive te- 38. DIEGO PERRONE rectangular or round bodies similar to forms observer. chnique of erasing and retracing lines, one Born in Asti in 1970, he lives and works of objects taken from everyday reality) the that outlines a world made up of shadows, in Milan. breath of chromaticism imbued with the 35. JULIAN SCHNABEL shifts and continuous metamorphosis, a Diego Perrone studied at the Brera Aca- taste and light of his homeland, the Abruzzo Born in 1951 in New York, he lives and works metaphor for amnesia in the light of the inju- demy in Milan with Luciano Fabro, and region. Spalletti’s art is timeless, absorbing between New York and Montauk, USA. stices that afflict the contemporary being. then in Bologna where he met Alberto the depth of history, leaving the spectator After moving to Texas with his family, Julian In addition to digital videos, Kentridge also Garutti. His artistic production is akin to free to interpret references to classical and Schnabel returned to his native New York makes engravings, tapestries, sculptures, Neo-Conceptualism and combines the free religious forms. in the early 1970s and participated in the bronzes and works for the theatre, recently use of various media – such as sculptu- Whitney Museum Independent Study in Italy for the Teatro di Roma. The work re, drawing, glass-working, video and 40. ANDREAS SLOMINSKI Program, coming to the fore with a series on display is part of the series Learning photography – with a multiplicity of poetic Born in Meppen, Germany, in 1959, he lives of large works, characterised by a mixture from the Absurd, which takes its cue from intuitions that allow him to give an acute and works in Hamburg. of innovative techniques, such as the use Gogol’s novel The Nose. The absurd, gro- reinterpretation of traditional themes and Often referred to by critics as the ‘Fallen- of broken crockery applied to the canvas, tesque elements of the story are designed icons, from popular culture to more recent steller’, i.e. he who sets traps, Andreas Slo- as well as various materials in which found to mock schemes and the established order history. A series of elements and symbols minski is a German conceptual artist whose objects and ones full of history are given by means of a global language. linked to the artist’s rural origins often recur work is seen by most as unpredictable and space. A painter and sculptor, Schnabel in his highly personal definition of artistic sometimes rebellious. Fascinated since the stands out for his amazing metamorphic 37. PIER PAOLO CALZOLARI imagination: the koi carp, the amphora, the beginning of his career by the sculptural ability and the overwhelming expressive Born in Bologna, in 1943. Lives and works tractor and the human ear are in fact just qualities of animal traps, the artist exhibited power that he communicates through a in Lisbon. some of the thematic nodes that return as a mousetrap for his first solo show in Ham- wild and gestural, almost neo-expressionist Aluminium foil, scraps, wood, debris, recurring elements of visual reflection. This burg in 1987, the starting point for many am- painting, conditioned also by European everyday objects, but also neon, salt, multitude of motifs comes together in the biguous and contrasting interpretations of influences and the Italian Transavanguardia. tobacco leaves, fire and ice-cold structures artist’s works, expressed in organic shapes an object reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s An eclectic genius also in the language of are among Calzolari’s favourite materials, through sculptures that take the form of readymades, and which – while maintaining film, Schnabel ventured into the world of ci- those that allow him to highlight a principle works in aluminium or molten glass mixed its appearance and function intact – takes nema to make three feature films. The work of the reconciliation of opposites, inviting a with minerals and oxides, subjected to very on artistic value precisely in relation to the on display is a reinterpretation of classic reflection that also entails the mental value high temperatures, while in his drawings, it very fact of being exhibited. Over time, the portraiture: subject, posture, clothing and of the work. Linked to the panorama of the is the result of the meticulous repetition of artist reworked his traps, thus offering the dimensions are distorted with enamel and exponents of Arte Povera (a term coined ballpoint pen lines running obsessively over public complex variations with the aim of innovative materials. in the second half of the 1960s by the the surface of the sheets. subverting expectations and perception, critic Germano Celant to define the work while investigating the role played by art. 36. WILLIAM KENTRIDGE of a group of artists who used ‘poor’ and 39. ETTORE SPALLETTI His is a scenario dotted with minor pitfalls, Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, unrefined materials such as cement, Eternit, Born in 1940 in Cappelle Sul Tavo (PE), where simple elements become complex where he lives and works. iron, plastic and natural elements, including where he lived and worked until his death and vice versa. A South African artist and filmmaker born wood, earth and water), Pier Paolo Calzolari in 2019. and raised in close contact with the difficult sees art as a meeting place between form, Ettore Spalletti’s artistic research began 41. VELASCO VITALI state of segregation experienced during colour, object and environment which, by in the early 1970s and immediately stood Born in 1960 in Bellano, province of Lecco, the long period of Apartheid that ended in floating from one dimension to another, out for its use of pure shapes and bright city where he lives and works. 1991, William Kentridge looks with extreme outline a condition of being through their colours that move on the edge between The son of an artist, Velasco Vitali began clear-mindedness and awareness at the hi- incessant process of transformation. From two- and three-dimensionality, blending to paint as a child, studying as an autodi- story of his homeland, proceeding through his painting, objects and installations to his painting and sculpture, tactility and image, dact with an interest in painting, sculpture powerful and poetic metaphors that expand performance, video and drawings of the in his luministic, volumetric and architectu- and graphics. With his works – which are to embrace a reflection on the universal 1970s, his art has always been imbued with ral immersion of space. Light blue – the formalised both in a pictorial and a pla- human condition. His work, always intense a sense of metamorphosis and an attention colour par excellence that he experiences stic-sculptural vision – the artist mainly and of great expressive power, reflects on to the alchemical process of matter that as an environmental condition – and pink – deals with contemporary socio-cultural the mechanisms of memory and forgetful- leads his works to abandon their state of shades of the incarnate body in continuous themes such as the Valtellina flood of 1987 ness, the ethical sense of responsibility, inertia and expand into the environment, to mutation – but also grey, white, green and or the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. While guilt and complicity, pain and injustice. the point where they embrace a new spatial yellow make up the artist’s ‘chromatic mo- maintaining a constant reference to the hu- Since 1989, the artist has used black-and- and temporal dimension. ods’ of choice, those that give his paintings, man figure (especially in his major work on white drawing (pastel or charcoal) to make drawings and sculptures (often square, portraiture), over time his painting evolved, opening up to the landscape. The discovery 43. MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO stories and memories. This operation of nurtured ever since childhood, Giorgio of Southern Italy, Sicily in particular, marks Born in 1933 in Biella, where he lives and cohabitation, however, does not take place Griffa graduated in Law in 1958 and began an important moment in his reflection on works. through a distortion of the object itself, but to work as a lawyer. In 1960 he felt the need views of the Mediterranean ports, acting as Michelangelo Pistoletto’s artistic training rather through an amplification of its being for a new kind of apprenticeship, and enrol- a counterpoint to his more analytical vision took place in the studio of his father, a pain- an ‘icon’, oscillating between continuous led in the private school of the Turinese ab- of Western metropolises. The encounter ter and restorer, with whom he began an cultural references and collective and per- stract painter Filippo Scroppo, developing a with Sicily would also bring Vitali closer to apprenticeship at the age of fourteen. sonal memories. The visual recovery and strictly figurative experience. Over the ye- sculpture, making use of materials typical of After studying at Armando Testa’s school of the ‘tangible reconstruction’ of elements of ars to come, Griffa would proceed towards illegal building practices, such as iron, tar, advertising graphics, he began his artistic his own past and of the environment in whi- a progressive and systematic subtraction of cement, lead and wire mesh. Famous in this career in the mid-fifties, holding his first ch he grew up is in fact a direct testimony of representative elements, yet without going regard is his series of dogs produced from solo exhibitions in 1955 and 1960 at the the inestimable evocative and sentimental down the path of abstractionism, until he 2003 onwards. “While illegal house-buil- Galleria Galatea in Turin. Starting with his power that the artist places in the objects reached his first totally unrepresentative ding is prosecutable, in art, instead, it is an firstQuadri specchianti (‘Mirror Paintings’) in that surround us. works. Between 1967 and 1968, the artist advantage: it feeds the imagination and 1962, on which he experimented with a new laid the foundations for his own pictorial inspiration. Abusing a thought or a material technique of photography on tissue paper 45. MARIO SCHIFANO language, developing a working method means experimenting with new ideas and applied to a mirror-polished stainless steel Born in Homs, Libya, in 1934. Died in Rome that still typifies his artistic practice to this new materials,” the artist stated in an inter- surface, and then moving on to Plexiglass in 1998. day, in which large frameless canvases in view in 2016. (1964) and Oggetti in meno (1965-1966) A tireless experimenter with the whole ran- coarse fabrics (jute, hemp, cotton and linen) – important opening shots for the birth of ge of pictorial languages, Mario Schifano are marked by paths of slender lines and 42. FRANCESCO VEZZOLI Arte Povera. Pistoletto’s works are qualified began his training by collaborating with his coloured rods drawn vertically, horizontally Born in Brescia, in 1971, he lives and works by virtue of his ceaseless experimentation, father, an archaeologist and restorer at the or diagonally in keeping with the nature of in Milan. beyond any defined technique or style, and Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome. He the non-finito, using brushes or sponges. Francesco Vezzoli graduated from the at the same time, by the progressive inte- soon abandoned this field and began his pi- As the artist stated in 1972: “I don’t repre- Central Saint Martins School of Art and gration of the spectator and the space-time ctorial production, making his debut in 1960 sent anything, I paint.” Design in London in 1995 and later settled of reality in his work. The work donated by with a series of monochrome paintings that in Milan. Inspired by pop icons, television the artist, a self-portrait on a mirrored surfa- offered the idea of a ‘screen’ intended as a 4 7. SAM FALLS stars and almost forgotten movie stars such ce, is of particular significance. It is a selfie transfigured object that would later contain Born in 1984 in San Diego, USA. He current- as Joan Crawford, Cary Grant and Greta ante litteram, which involves the viewers by figures, letters, road signs and fragments of ly lives and works between Los Angeles Garbo, his work examines and emulates the making them part of the artwork. signs taken from consumerist civilisation, and New York. communication and production structures according to the conscious sensitivity of American-born Sam Falls’s production of the collective imagination, exploring the 44. FLAVIO FAVELLI the American pop atmosphere that the combines his various artistic interests in power of contemporary popular culture. Born in Florence, 1967. Today he lives artist had already experienced in 1962, fol- photography, painting, performance and Vezzoli’s work is therefore a sort of remedy and works in Savigno, in the province lowing a trip to the United States. Belonging sculpture, while embracing the founding and re-elaboration of the ephemeral media of Bologna. to the Italian Pop group that developed and principles of these languages: light, colour, that harnesses the power of language to After completing studies in Oriental History became famous in Rome in those years, process and quality of matter. The attention ponder the ambiguous nature of truth and at the University of Bologna in 1993, Flavio together with Tano Festa, Franco Angeli, to the relationship between man and nature the fragility of the human soul. Whether it Favelli undertook artistic research aimed Sergio Lombardo and others, from 1964 is in fact manifested in his ability to dose is small-stitch embroidery, photographs, at enhancing the functional characteristics Schifano also experimented with film: a me- action with the temporal cyclicity of the en- videos or performances inspired by the likes and value in terms of the use and decoration dium that fits perfectly into his research into vironment, in a balance in which air, climate of Gioachino Rossini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, of old furnishing objects (such as chande- the uninterrupted flow of images produced and the passing of time play a primary role Luigi Pirandello and Salvador Dalì, the artist liers, mirrors, wardrobes, frames, vases and by our technological civilisation. Following in interaction with the raw material. A passa- naturally combines fragments of ‘high’ and trays) or of everyday consumption (such as this path, from the 1970s Schifano has made ge from the text produced on the occasion ‘low’ culture, ranging from arthouse cinema, Coca Cola or Fanta bottles). Characterised use of common subjects, taking them out of his exhibition at the Galleria Civica di Hollywood films, television productions, art by a strong autobiographical component, of context and popularising them, as he did Trento in 2018 brilliantly sums up Falls’s history, fashion and contemporary politi- his works are formalised in sculptures, with the tree on display. poetics: “In the summer I go into the woods cs. The work on display depicts an iconic installations, interventions in public spaces and watch the light filtering through the ca- subject: the Virgin Mary, embroidered in and collages in which the assembly of 46. GIORGIO GRIFFA nopy of leaves. I lay down sheets of fabric colour with a large, black-and-white tear various recycled materials and objects of Born in Turin, 1936, where he lives in the forest behind our house to capture applied to her face. different origins generates an overlapping and works. the projections that pass through the leaves of sense imbued with deeply evocative Driven by a strong passion for painting from dawn until dusk. The wind moves the shadows over the course of seconds and Canada, she moved to New York in 1931, Shilpa Gupta trained as a sculptor at the the sun over that of hours; these fields of where she attended Columbia University Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts in Mumbai. colour are abstract sundials of a place, and came into contact with the lively artistic Although her artistic production is mainly made temporarily two-dimensional so that environment, taking an interest in Oriental plastic in nature, the artist began very you can perceive the third dimension as the thought, particularly Zen. Attracted by the early on to experiment with a wide range sensation of landscape.” city’s natural beauty, she then moved to of expressive media such as performance, Taos, in the state of New , where photography and video as well as inte- 48. TULLIO PERICOLI she would remain for the rest of her life. Her ractive and multimedia installations. The Born in 1936 in Colli del Tronto (AP), he lives artistic production – dominated by prolon- predominant themes in her work are of a and works in Milan. ged concentration, an immersion in calm social kind – such as the manipulation of the A painter and drawer, Tullio Pericoli enrolled and an appropriation of the stroke – may be working classes through religion, politics, at the Faculty of Law in Urbino at his father’s divided into two periods: the first, coming desire, security and the market – and a request, but shortly before graduation he to an end around the turn of the 1960s with critique of the system of valorisation of interrupted his studies for fear of embarking abstract geometry, uses biomorphic forms works in the art world. With concise con- on a career that he did not feel to be his as its initial focus. The second, on the other ceptual gestures formalised through texts, own. In 1961 he moved to Milan, where after hand, develops using vertical and hori- actions, objects and installations, the artist a few years he began to collaborate with zontal lines and a restricted and delicate explores the concepts of nation, identity, numerous newspapers and magazines such range of colours. A decisive element is the surveillance and the control of individual as the Corriere della Sera and the weekly introduction of grid structures, seen as a freedoms and boundaries, viewed in their L’Espresso (both in 1974), and later La Re- codification of the two-dimensionality of physical and ideological meaning. Her work pubblica (in 1984). His drawings and portrai- the support, as well as the result of a pro- goes through a perennial state of tension ts for newspapers are the activity for which cess that records the time required for the and uncertainty that reflects the history of he became known, but throughout his ca- creation of each painting. independent India. reer the artist has never stopped depicting the landscape, initially pursuing a more ab- 50. GIOVANNI DA RIMINI stract path (identifiable in the stratifications THE LAST JUDGMENT of the cycle of ‘geologies’ and imaginary horizons with watercolours, ink and pencils 51. DOMENICO BIANCHI on paper), and a much more physical style Born in Anagni (FR), in 1955. He lives and in recent times (through the exploration of works in Rome. new landscape morphologies and details of Driven by a harmonious and meticulous nature). The two subjects, to be viewed as research into forms and materials, Domeni- topics of investigation following the same co Bianchi emerged at the beginning of the research path, are aspects that allow the 1980s, proposing a reflection on painting artist to undertake continuous renewals of with an architectural function, and focusing the pictorial experience. In 1995 Pericoli mainly on essential ‘figuration’ reduced to also approached the world of theatre, for a few modular elements. His images are in which he has since designed scenes and fact made up of a sign – a sort of cen- costumes for various shows. tral nucleus generating form, movement, transparency and light – which references 49. AGNES MARTIN infinite hypotheses of imagery. Working on Born in Macklin in Canada, 1912, died in large surfaces, the artist experiments with Taos, USA, in 2004. a particular technique of painting on wax A Canadian-American painter, Agnes which is engraved, carved or scratched Martin is one of the few women who ma- with absolutely minimal strokes, reminiscent naged to emerge from within the climate of Renaissance inlays. of abstract painting that developed after World War II in America, dominated mainly 52. SHILPA GUPTA by male figures such as Mark Rothko and Born in 1976 in Mumbai, India, where she Barnett Newman. After growing up in lives and works. lives and works in Milan. multiple aspects of decadence, social HALL 4 A graduate in Anthropology and Art History violence and power relations: in them, from Columbia University, Anne de Carbuc- gender categories and stereotypes are cia is a Franco-American environmentalist often subverted in favour of symbolism and artist and filmmaker interested in nature and hallucinations typical of the daydream. In the impact that man has on it. The artwork 2004, her collaboration with the composer exhibited, Women Empowerment, was cre- Hans Berg further enriched Djurberg’s work, ated at the United Nations headquarters in catapulting her installations and videos New York on 8 March 2017, on the occasion into a spectrum of sounds and rhythms that of International Women’s Day. On her travels emphasise the sense of contradiction of the around the world, during which she docu- human soul. ments and preserves the memory of sites, animals and cultures at risk of extinction, 57. CLAUDIA LOSI the artist creates temporary installations in Born in Piacenza in 1971, where she still lives symbolic places, and then captures them in and works. 53. GRAZIA TODERI currently lives and works. photographs, thus maintaining a memory of Claudia Losi uses a variety of expressive Born in Padua in 1963, she currently lives Through the use of everyday materials that ‘endangered’ moment. With the images media, embracing installation, sculpture, and works between Milan and Turin. – such as wood, architectural fragments she has collected during numerous expe- video and works on fabric and paper. After After attending the Academy of Fine Arts and textiles – the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim ditions to Antarctica and the most remote studying at the Academy of Fine Arts and in Bologna, Grazia Toderi moved to Milan in Mahama explores urgent issues related to areas of the planet, de Carbuccia created at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and 1992 where she immediately stood out for the phenomenon of migration, globalisation the photographic project One Planet One Literature in Bologna, the artist from Pia- her innovative use of video – often structu- and the movement of people and goods Future in order to speak through images cenza focused her research on the rela- red as a continuous cyclical projection between different nations, shedding light about the themes most dear to her: water, tionship between man and nature, and on – which remains the tool of choice in on the invisible aspects of these processes. endangered animals, endangered habitats, exploration as an experience of knowledge, her work. The camera fixes on everyday What emerges in his large-scale installation refugees and destroyed cultures. immediately taking an interest in multidi- objects in domestic contexts (in which interventions is in fact the idea of the border sciplinary projects that intertwine natural emotions in the viewer are aroused by the that finds its highest degree of expression 56. NATHALIE DJURBERG & HANS BERG sciences, ethnology, geology, cartography, sensation of the expansion of space and in the use of jute sacks sewn together and Nathalie Djurberg was born in 1978 in Ly- poetry and literature. A fundamental aspect time towards infinity), the introduction of draped over imposing architectural structu- sekil, Sweden, while Hans Berg in Raatvik, of her work is the action of embroidery: a repetitive actions that suspend the narrative res. A symbol of Ghana’s markets, the sacks Sweden, also in 1978. Both live and work in cherished and poetic medium that calls for and her concentration on details are some are manufactured in Asia and imported Berlin. manual skill and precision. Among her most of the recurring elements in the artist’s early into Africa for the international transport Shaping an imaginary universe with a famous works from the early 1990s are a se- works, who in 1993 was invited to partici- of food and various goods (cocoa, beans, strong symbolic and hallucinatory reach, ries of participatory artworks based on the pate in Aperto ’93 on the occasion of the rice and coal). Torn, stitched and covered the research of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans desire to involve a group of people to carry Venice Biennale. Over time, however, her in various marks and coordinates, the sacks Berg (the Swedish duo who were awarded out embroidery work. Most of the projects gaze rose from a vision immersed in the thus become a symbol of the conflicts and the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale in conceived by the artist also arise from her world, opening up to views of stadiums, dramas that have taken place for centuries 2009) sends the observer on a journey encounter with a place that slowly takes on arenas and theatres which, along with aerial in the shadow of the global economy. In within archetypal environments inhabi- the form of a work. images of cities, would become the object the work on display, the marks on a female ted by transfigured animal creatures and of a research approach full of powerful arm are made for identification and security human beings with grotesque features. 58. DAVIDE MONALDI reflections on the human condition. Central purposes, in order to trace the origins of mi- After an education influenced by studies Born in 1983 in San Benedetto del Tronto. to Toderi’s poetics is also her dialogue with grants even in the event of death. The same on figurative and classical sculpture, since He lives and works in Rome. literature but above all with painting: a te- signs are found on the bags for the same 2001 Djurberg has focused on the cre- After studying at the art school of San Be- chnique that she feels close to because of purpose. Eventually, these two materials, ation of animated videos made with the nedetto del Tronto, Davide Monaldi studied the very timelessness usually reserved for bags and leather, tell of the exploitation stop-motion technique, i.e. filming every sculpture at the Free Academy of Fine Arts paintings, and which she manages to confer of work and the value of goods, including single frame that, when played in sequence, in Rome and completed his first expe- with great naturalness to her video images. human ones. restores the optical illusion of movement. riences abroad, first in Salzburg, studying In this way, narratives and landscapes are one summer with the Ukrainian artist Ilya 54. IBRAHIM MAHAMA 55. ANNE DE CARBUCCIA created, populated by characters made of Kabakov, and then attending the Central Born in 1987 in Tamale, Ghana, where he Born in 1968 in New York. She currently Plasticine, iron wire and fabric that convey Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London. He later developed a self-taught the medium. Even the medium itself beco- interest in the non-canonical use of cerami- mes a distinctive element: silk, satin, marble cs, which the artist has always considered are the unusual materials used by the artist. an instrument capable of reflecting the aesthetic and technical characteristics that 60. SAM FALLS lie midway between painting and sculpture. See n. 47 In fact, this technique allows him to express the synthesis of a research that follows 61. ZEHRA DOĞAN an experimental path which sets out from Born in 1989 in Diyarbakır, Turkey, she the graphic arts. His first ceramic works currently lives and works between London are three-dimensional transpositions of and Europe. his drawings, while more recently Monaldi A Kurdish artist, journalist and writer with has turned to the production of installation Turkish citizenship, Zehra Doğan gradua- works, adding a new aesthetic level to his ted from the Dicle University of Art and research. Among these is his wallpaper Design. In 2010 she became the founder which – as well as enveloping childhood and director of JINHA, a Kurdish press memories through the conception of a agency made up exclusively of women. domestic environment – opens up to the As a feminist activist, strongly committed desire to toy with the viewer’s gaze, inclu- to politics, Doğan was the first to testify ding stylistic references that lead the viewer against the persecutions and conditions to a complete detachment from reality. of slavery that Yazidi women were forced to endure during the war in Syria and Iraq. 59. ELISA SIGHICELLI In 2017 she was sentenced to almost three Born in Turin, in 1968, where she lives and years of prison for “terrorist propagan- works. da” after posting a drawing which sarcasti- A photographer and video artist from Turin, cally depicted the rubble of Nusaybin – the Elisa Sighicelli studied textile design in Kurdish city destroyed during the clashes Florence and later obtained a Master in Fine between state security forces and Kurdish Arts from the Slade School in London. Her insurgents – on her Twitter feed. Supported work focuses on the use of colour pho- by famous artists such as Banksy and Ai tography with a particular editing tech- Weiwei during detention, she was released nique using light boxes that allows her to in 2019. Throughout her imprisonment, backlight only certain areas of the image. she continued to create artworks with any Particularly interested in exploring the materials she could find: tea, ink, juice and relationship between light, the natural and organic waste. Animated by a constant domestic landscape, Sighicelli uses photo- spirit of criticism and resilience, one which graphy as a material rather than a medium, takes shape in pictorial and graphic works “seeking formal solutions to extend the made of recycled supports and improvi- space of representation into the real space sed materials, Doğan’s art may be defined of the viewer and vice versa, exploiting the as ‘journalistic’: a penetrating sum of the interplay between two and three dimen- intimate dimension and thorny events, one sions,” said the artist in a recent interview. which reports the stories of the pain and Reflecting on the key themes of art history courage of the women the artist met throu- – representation, the ambiguities of seeing ghout her journey. and the impossibility of not seeing oneself – and the role of photography – viewed as 62. LUCA PIGNATELLI object, subject, instrument and metaphor in See n. 16 a process that asks fundamental questions – the artist questions perception itself, always mediated between experience and