Gianni Motti
As part of the conference cycle In Situ & In Vivo – Entretiens sur l’art
Pascal Beausse receives Gianni Motti, born in 1958 in Italy.
Gianni Motti now lives and works in Geneva, where he leads an exemplary life. He is a hacker of reality. He appropriates an event – an earthquake, a soccer game, a U.N. meeting, Berlusconi’s liposuction – and, like a terrorist, claims responsibility for it in press releases. Like a virus, he enrolls global networks in the service of his project, blends in their permanent data streams, and puts the anonymous dispatch writer in charge of producing the document that attests to the reality of his « performance. » He appears in a Houellebecq novel or on the television show Paris Dernière with the same powerful evidence and incongruity, gaining acceptance thanks to the placidity, the coolness, and the humor of his interventions. With a newfound gift of ubiquity and with the help of his countless « Gianni Motti Assistants, » he multiplies interventions to always be where nobody expects him, at the right time and in the wrong place. Gianni Motti’s art wholly consists in obtaining the most effects with the fewest means. With him everything begins with the wish to have an active part in reality, moving from the centre of art towards parallel worlds with a constant curiosity for how structures operate. His activity includes elements most often outside the reach of art. He invites the social, political, and economic reality to enter exhibitions as though by intrusion. This opening produces narratives, which then escape it and move its very experience to a different place – there where a new opportunity to learn about the unpredictability of life will once again arise. Gianni Motti works in situ and in vivo, looking at the world as a great laboratory full of possibilities. He confronts human institutions and individuals with their own truths, and puts artistic activity back at the center of society.
Gianni Motti’s work is on exhibit at he art center the Synagogue de Delme until September 15. He is represented in Paris by art gallery Bugada & Cargnel
