GIOVANNI GIARETTA

GIOVANNI GIARETTA
SELECTED WORKS
An inaccurate distance
Video Full HD, 15’22”
Italian with English subtitle
2014
The video is an attempt to grasp the
relationship the translator Riccardo
Bertani has with the notion of distance.
Bertani worked as a farmer all his
life and has never visited the countries he has written about. The camera tries to portray the intimacy of
his house and look for distance within his domestic space.
The video has been realised with the
support of nctm e l’arte.
An inaccurate distance, Still from video
Untitled
(Portrait study)
Video Full HD, 13’21”
2012
The video documents the relationship between an entomologist with a
few different species of butterfly.
The gestures and the experience of
an entomologist create a narrative
between scientific description, language of play and choreography.
Untitled (Study portrait), Still from video
View of the installation Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice
View of the installation Scale di Montesanto, Naples
A thing among things
Video Full HD, 7’13”
2015
The video combines the recollection
of visual memories of a blind person
with close-ups of transparent minerals.
The images work almost as a scenography open to different interpretations: as if to see something presumed to be something else.
A thing among things, Still from video
A thing among things, Still from video
Everything into something
else
35x42 cm
C-print
2015
This work consists of pictures of
mirrors that have lost the ability to
reflect an image (bronze mirrors
from the Egyptian and Greek periods). The camera can stand in front
of them without being reflected and
is able to observe the oxidized surface where no image can appear anymore.
The film was inverted, presenting the
print as a negative, so the light (necessary for an image formation) will
‘touch’ the mirror’s surface, giving
an unexpected physical quality to it.
View of the installation in the studio
View of the installation in the studio
Bicycle
Bicycle, Led light, battery
Variable dimensions
2011
The light lamp of the bike was previously modified to charge itself when
a person is cycling.
The light keeps on shining in correspondence to the length of the
journey and slowly fades out until it
completely disappears.
The bicycle was used everyday to
travel to the exhibition space.
Metaphorically the beam of light
projects the journey; the energy of
everyday travel translates into light.
View of the installation Fondazione Ratti, Como
During the entire duration of the exhibition Livret III at Motive Gallery
in Amsterdam, the bicycle was used
by the gallery owner moving from
his home to the workplace.
View of the installation Motive Gallery, Amsterdam
Moon
Beard mirror, clamp, LED battery,
sodium chloride
Variable dimensions
2009
A small LED battery, held up by
a clamp, points to a shaving mirror. These simple items settled
together function as a rudimental
projector. The mirror reflection recalls the shape of the moon.
View of the installation, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene
View of the installation, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene
To make words become
things and not events
35x42 cm
C-print
Series of 5
2014
The work consists of some images of
my mother’s handwritten transcriptions of popular songs. She is a singer who, being non-English speaking,
cannot understand the meaning of
the original words and through this
process of transcribing, the song’s
lyrics become a new or imagined
language.
A selection was made of the lyrics
that refer to geographical locations.
The different places are only evoked
through a bastardised English and
as such only a stereotype remains;
an unreachable reference point. The
intimate translation that unintentionally results, creates a new landscape,
the words becoming things or signs
of a place that exists only in personal
dreams.
View of the installation in the studio
Giovanni Giaretta / Renato Leotta
Effetto Majorana (La Solfatara,
recording of disappearance),
16 mm film
01’19” loop
2014
The video documents an exercise in
disappearance within the space.
An attempt to use the geological features of a landscape as a rudimental
special effect.
https://vimeo.com/120810511
Password: em
View of the installation at Fuori Campo, Siena
View of the installation at Fuori Campo, Siena
Untitled (Misteri d’Italia)
06’07” loop
2015
The starting point for this work is a
book of articles written by the Italian
writer Dino Buzzati called “Misteri
d’Italia”. For one summer the writer
travelled in some rural parts of Italy
looking for legends, folkloric stories,
paranormal or superstitions facts. He
was more interested in the relation
people had with different phenomena than the phenomenon itself.
The video “Untitled (misteri
d’Italia)” shows a number of people
interacting with the optical phenomenon of the “gravity hill”. A street
where things appear to defy gravity, seemingly rolling uphill and not
down.
The work is based on found footage
and the editing underlies the relation
between ordinary objects and this illusionary aspect of the landscape.
View of the installation
Untitled (Misteri d’italia), Stills from video
Study for a drawing
(completed by its own shadow)
C - print
25x35 cm
2014
View of the installation
The uncanny parrot
C-print
40x40 cm
2013
The c-print captures the moment in
wich a parrot realizes that it is in
front of a mirror.
View of the installation
Dans la Baleine
Video, MiniDv, 08’25”
2011
A laboratory with blue lights. Some
details of natural landscapes. Mountain peaks lit by cold neon lights.
Some artificial waterfalls. A jetty
which is boxed between the walls, a
painted backdrop.
The piece was filmed inside the engine room which manages all the
tanks at the Milan Aquarium, trying
to observe it as a cinematographic
apparatus.
http://vimeo.com/29554273
password: dlb
Dans la
la baleine,
baleine, Still
Still from
from video
video
From the pupil of my eyes to
the circle of the sun
Video Full HD, Loop
2013
From the pupil of my eyes to the circle of the sun, Still from video
From the pupil of my eyes to the circle of the sun, Still from video
The House
140 slides
Variable dimensions
2010-ongoing
Genre films follow some aspects and
cliches that make several movies look
like the same each other and create a
similar imaginary and atmosphere.
In horror movies, architecture is
often the main character, a frame
around which and in which disparate
situations weave together.
This work comprises a collection
of several architectures. So all the
movies are reduced to their common denominator, dehydrating them
in order to deprive these images of their
references, forced to show themselves,
all variations of the same element,
revealing the same sign, hidden in
an architectural skeleton, constantly
renewed.
View of the installation, Cripta 747, Turin
Solving the dive
Video Full HD, 9’15”
2012
This video is filmed in collaboration
with the ex-diver Nicola Marconi
taken while training before diving in
the pool, learning to fall in the best
way.
View of the installation Macro, Roma
Untitled
Series of 6 photos
Variable dimensions
2008
Untitled is a work composed by several pictures of lit flashlights hanging up on the wall facing my bed.
Turning off the lights, this image approximately recalls the astronomical
picture of an eclipse.
Such as old sci-fi movies tried to
imagine and recreate amateurishly
an unknown universe using primeval
special effects, this shooting tries to
reproduce the same atmosphere, but
starting from an inmost and utopian
dimension, less spectacular.
View of the installation, La Générale, Paris
Giovanni Giaretta
Padua 1983
Lives and works in Amsterdam
giovannigiaretta@gmail.com
Education
2009 - IUAV, Venice - Faculty of Arts & Design - Master’s Degree in Visual Arts
Production and Design
2006 - Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano - Bachelor’s Degree in Didactics of Arts
Workshops
2012 - Fondation Botin workshop, Santander, SP.
Visiting professor: Lothar Baumgarten
2011 - Advanced Course in Visual Arts, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, IT
Visiting professor: Susan Hiller
Solo & Duo exhibitions
2015 - WAS IT A CAT I SAW (with Simon Van Til), De Kleine Kapel, Buitenplaats Koningsweg,
Arnhem, NL
2015 - Valbaara. Giovanni Giaretta / Renato Leotta, Galleria FuoriCampo, Siena, IT
2014 - Extra dry, curated by Peep-hole, Milan, IT
2012 - Studioshow, curated by Maria Alicata, Final residence exhibition, Macro Macro
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Roma, IT
Group exhibitions (selected)
2015 - Function Creep, curated by Xander Karskens, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, NL
2014 - Echo Back, curated by Stefano Coletto and Giulia Bini, Jarach Gallery, Venice, IT
2013 - 5x5Castelló. Premi Internacional d’art contemprani Diputació de Castelló, curated
by Alvaro de los Angeles
Castellló, SP
2013 - T-A-X-I, curated by Almanac and Cripta74, Almanac Project, London, ENG
2013 - La plupart du temps, curated by Martial Deflacieux, La Tôlerie, Clermont-Ferrand,
FR
2012 - Out of Focus, curated by Nicola Genovese and Caterina Benvegnù, 365 architetti,
Padua, IT
2012 - Livret IV, curated by Irmavep Club, Musée départemental d’art contemporain de
Rochechouart, Rochechouart, FR (c)
2012 - Opera 2011. Lunar Park. Artists from the Atelier, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation,
Venice, IT (c)
2011 - Run°3, Room Galleria, Milano, IT
2011 - Livret III, curated by Irmavep Club, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2011 - Corso Aperto, curated by Cesare Pietroiusti, Villa Sucota, Fondazione Antonio
Ratti, Como, IT (c)
2011 - To see an object, to see the light, curated by Ginny Kollak, Padraic E. Moore and Pavel S.
Pys, Palazzo Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Guarene d’Alba, Cuneo, IT (c)
2011 - 100 drawings against the Vietnam War, curated by Damien Airault, Komplot,
Bruxelles, B
2010 - Luna Park Party, curated by Cherimus Association, Perdaxius , IT(c)
2010 - L’arpa Magica, Lucie Fontaine, Milan, IT
2010 - Titolo Grosso, Cripta 747, Turin, IT
2008 - I sette arcobaleni, curated by Matteo Rubbi, Careof, Milan, IT
2007 - 91st Young Talents Collective, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice, IT (c)
Festival and screenings (selected)
2015 - A space between words and images, curated by Gawan Fagard and Gwendolyn Lootens,
Cinema Wolke #27, Brussels, BL
2014 - Autumn Screening, curated by Almanac Project, Spazio Borgogno, Turin, IT
2014 - VISIO, curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, Villa Romana, Florece, IT
2013 - Q.I, curated by Adriana Rispoli, Naples, IT
2013 - TEATROЯOTATE, curated by Laurent Montaron, Villa Medici, Roma, It
2012 - Helicotrema, curated by Blauer Hase, Serra dei Giardini, Venezia, Italy, IT (c)
2010 - LOOP - Video Art Festival, Screening curated by Francesca di Nardo, Barcelona, SP
2008 - Italian Annual Videoart Exhibition - Videoart Yearbook 2008, Galleria Civica, Trento, IT
(c)
2007 - Video.it - Con Acqua, Senz’Acqua, curated by Francesco Poli e Mario Gorni, Accademia
Albertina, Turin, IT (c)
Residencies
2013 - De Ateliers, Amsterdam. NL
2012 - Artist in residence, Macro, Roma, IT
2010 - Centre International d’Accueil et d’Echange des Rècollets, Dena Foundation for
Contemporary Art, Paris, FR. Grant with the support of the Municipality of Milan
Events
2014 - Talk d’artista, curated by Marco Nember, with Lorenzo Benedetti and Massimo
Benvegnù, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Amsterdam, NL
2013 - The Impossible hour, screening projection curated by Giovanni Giaretta, Macro
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Roma, IT
2011 - Artist Talk & Open Studios Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzo Carminati, Venice, IT (c)
2010 - Giovanni Giaretta Vs. Barbara Meneghel. A lecture, curated by Radical Intention,
Milan, IT
2010 - De Arte Disputatio. Interludium, curated by Milovan Farronato, MiArt, Milan, IT
2009 - Kosmograph, a special project curated for 2video, Undo.net
2009 - La trilogia di Sinbad, screening curated by Giovanni Giaretta for LucieFontaine,
Milan, IT
Bibliography
2012 - Wolves and Peasants 38% No title 38% Notes 19% Dreamers 4%, Mousse Publishing
2012 - Atelier BLM Notebook 2011. Artists of Bevilacqua La Masa Ateliers, Molesikine
Press
2011 - To see an object, to see the light, Mousse Publishing
Press (selected)
Ludovico Pratesi, Studio Visit, Exibart, January 2013
Marie Bechetoille, Renverser les images et les origines, La Belle Revue, March 2012
Tommaso Zanini, Case veneziane. Per artisti. Sede #1, Artribune Online, December 2011
Francesca di Nardo, Residenze d’artista, Flash Art Italia, n°294, June 2011
Giovanni Giaretta/Ariane Michel. Passeggiando tra la natura, Flash Art Italia n°293,
May 2011
(c) denotes that a catalogue or a pubblication was published in conjunction with the exhibition, the screening or
the event.