Pirelli HangarBicocca

GIORGIO ANDREOTTA CALÒ
14 February – 21 July 2019

Curated by Roberta Tenconi

Giorgio Andreotta Calò (Venice, 1979; he lives and works in Italy and the Netherlands) is one of the most remarkable Italian artists of recent years and represented Italy at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). His works include sculptures, large-scale site-specific installations and spatial works that transform both fragments of buildings and entire landscapes; they are often designed to be included in a rich patchwork of self-referencing connections, in part through the use of natural elements dense with symbolic meanings, such as water, light and fire.

His work is rooted in conceptual and processual practices typical of artists of the Sixties and Seventies but it also evolves into new directions. It always comes as the result of a long process of research into materials—from the more classical, such as bronze and wood, to the more unusual, such as caranto clay, the submarine layer beneath the city of Venice—, processing techniques and their origin. His interest in organic materials links his works to current international debates on the use and dispersal of raw materials and themes of socio-ecological change.

The constant re-elaboration and reconfiguration of his works based on the geographical and cultural context in which they are exhibited is an integral part of his artistic methodology. For “CITTÀDIMILANO” the artist focuses on his sculptural practice, displaying works created since 2008, and here conceived as part of a single landscape that transforms the perception of the environment and highlights the links existing between the artworks in a close dialogue.

Giorgio Andreotta Calò has also carried out research into the history of the Pirelli Company, creating new works that bring to light previously unknown stories from the past, such as the one of the wreck of the steamship Città di Milano [City of Milan] from which the exhibition takes its name.