Aldo Giannotti: Demolition Event

Aldo Giannotti is curious about constructs such as personal and cultural identity, collectivity and mechanisms of power, and often stages situations involving visitor participation. By shifting and rearranging symbols, he challenges the meaning of terrains and spaces such as nations, institutions and individual positions.

Presented as a ?programmatic? series of ideas or concept drawings, the outcome of Giannotti?s interventions is a kind of cartography that evolves in line with research and dialogue. Drawing, as a planning tool, has always been integral to Giannotti?s artistic practice. He uses it as an occasion or medium for liberating an imaginative, anticipatory practice that gathers up countless interventions and possible ?exhibitions? in one and the same space. His ideas function as a commentary, critique and contribution, perpetually reconfiguring the representation of the space.
Giannotti?s main interest lies in the relationship of individuals with their surroundings. The change of social space through the reshaping of an architectural structure serves as a performative research tool to measure the correlation between a spatial arrangement and a tendency towards a particular behaviour. In this process, drawing holds a central role. It serves as instruction for exploring socio-architectural concepts and defines the scope for their execution.

“Spatial Dispositions” f.e. was a wide-ranging project of Vienna-based Italian artist Aldo Giannotti. It consists of a three-part publication that incorporates possible concepts – or conceptual possibilities – for installative performances, which the artist will prepare for three different art institutions (Albertina, Vienna, ar/ge kunst, Bozen; The Showroom, London; Kunsthaus Graz; LENTOS Kunstmuseum, Linz).

Text passages by Giorgio Palma