Lives in Naples, Italy
Website http://www.tosatti.org/%5B_GIAN_MARIA_TOSATTI_%5D.html
How do you describe your own art practice?
I build mirrors. Sometimes they are large enough to frame the person who stands in front of them in the context of a social-political-cultural landscape.
Kalbim Ayna Gibi Boş - İstanbul Bölümü (Il mio cuore è vuoto come uno specchio - Episodio di Istanbul) 2021
installation view, site specific.
Courtesy of Galleria Lia Rumma Milano/Napoli
Which question or theme is central in your work?
Since the very beginning of my practice I thought that I should have built devices that could answer to the question: “who am I?”. Even now, that I’m working on a project that attempts to depict the current state of our democracy and of our civilization I think that everything can be reduced to a very simple question: “who am I in this context?”
Terra dell’ultimo cielo, 2016
installation view, site specific
Courtesy: Galleria Lia Rumma Milano/Napoli
What was your first experience with art?
I started working in art as assistant director in a theatre when I was at the high school. Yet my first professional experience as a visual artist was inside an occupied monastery. I built a work that should has been open only for two days. We had so much public that we had to close a year and a half later.
“History of Night and Destiny of Comets” (Storia della Notte e Destino delle Comete), Italian Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2022
curated by Eugenio Viola, Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion Onofrio Cutaia
Courtesy DGCC - MiC
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
I would say life. I live in the cities where I decide to work and I ask to all the people that I meet to give me the phantom thread that is sewed inside their coats. Then when I collected them all I make an tapestry out of them.
“History of Night and Destiny of Comets” (Storia della Notte e Destino delle Comete), Italian Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2022
curated by Eugenio Viola, Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion Onofrio Cutaia
Courtesy DGCC - MiC
What do you need in order to create your work?
Courage.
“History of Night and Destiny of Comets” (Storia della Notte e Destino delle Comete), Italian Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2022
curated by Eugenio Viola, Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion Onofrio Cutaia
Courtesy DGCC - MiC
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
It was the Irish Pavilion by Niamh O’Malley at the Venice Biennale. It was clear since the beginning that it was a great work, but on the very first days of the exhibition the spectacular power of other works made it a little less visible in the framework of that big circus. Yet, after 7 months, at the end of Biennale, when other works demonstrated to be no more than fireworks, the sculptures of O’Malley kept their full value as a diamond.
“History of Night and Destiny of Comets” (Storia della Notte e Destino delle Comete), Italian Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2022
curated by Eugenio Viola, Commissioner of the Italian Pavilion Onofrio Cutaia
Courtesy DGCC - MiC
