Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Patrick Tuttofuoco

24 Oct - 09 Nov 2008

PATRICK TUTTOFUOCO
“Dandelion”

24th October – 9th November 2008, Studio 3
Opening: Thursday 23rd October 2008, as from 7 pm

PATRICK TUTTOFUOCO is interested in dialogue between people of highly differing origins and in urban life with its diverse structures and communities. His artistic practice is inspired by a desire for communication and an interest in the various features of social dynamics and their visualisation.
For Tuttofuoco, the world is a “social, architectonic, relational, formal and cultural condensate”, which he seeks to represent with the aid of diverse forms and media, starting out from his own personal interpretation. As a result, one can find in his works ingredients as varied as loud music, bizarre architectonic forms, dazzling colours, documentary materials or notes and found objects from flea markets.
In Studio 3 of the Künstlerhaus, Patrick Tuttofuoco has now created a kind of “artistic landscape” by grouping together several separate components to construct a walk-in installation: a large light sculpture hanging from the ceiling gently compels the visitor to adopt a ‘new position’ while seeming to form a protective portal.
Entitled Dictionary, a set of drawings including some collage parts depicts a huge range of things that Tuttofuoco has collected together in Berlin, because he finds them interesting, attractive or strange – but certainly relevant to the city.
The title component of the installation is provided by a common and therefore seldom noticed plant: the Dandelion is a frugal weed that seems just as much at home on wasteland and in scrap yards as it is in succulent meadows, and thus with its modest beauty symbolises adaptation to urban change, things always in a state of radical development. Tuttofuoco plans to fetch these dandelion plants into the exhibition space from various locations in Berlin; here, he will exhibit and cultivate them in o rder to return them later to their original locations, which he has carefully marked on a city map. Dandelion is the artist’s personal homage to the city of Berlin, which Patrick Tuttofuoco sees as embodying permanent, everyday change in a way that no other city does. This is precisely why he made Berlin into his home some time ago.
PATRICK TUTTOFUOCO *1974 in Milan, lives and works in Berlin. He studied art at the Art Academy in Milan and arc h i t e c t u reat the Politecnico, Milan. Exhibitions incl.: Revolving Landscape, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin 2006; Chindia, Haunch of Venison Gallery, London 2006; Hyper Design, Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai 2006; On Mobility, Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam 2006; Luce di Pietra, Villa Medici, Rome et al. 2007.
Patrick Tuttofuoco holds fellowships from the Associazione per il Circuito dei Giovani Artisti Italiani – GAI, des Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali – PARC, and the Dipartimento per le politiche giovanili – POGAS in the context of our International Studio Programme.
 

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