Paola Pivi Untitled

dimensione ambiente/dimensions variable

Paola Pivi’s output includes photography, performance, sculpture, and, more recently, large-scale installations. Her work is characterized by the decontextualization of objects, animals, or people, which, according to an artistic paradigm deriving from the historic Avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, leads to a loss of the original meaning and an emotive shock for the viewer. "Untitled" is a work in progress that is part of a particular line of inquiry pursued by Pivi, who, at the end of the 1990s, explored the relationship between art and science. Produced especially for the first edition of the Premio per la giovane arte italiana, the artist had the idea for the installation while she was at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva for the exhibition project “Signatures of the Invisible” (2001), centering on the engagement between artists and scientists. For this work, Pivi showed some monographs and catalogues of contemporary artists working in various different styles to a group of theoretical physicists, and asked them to annotate and write their personal impressions on the texts. The selected artists, including Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, and Bruce Nauman, prompted an interesting variety of reflections and forms of intervention. Robert Cailliau, for example, annotated the text with invisible ink. The diversity of approaches confirmed the artist’s need for artworks to be read without any kind of conditioning associated with a particular artistic background.

No

C. D’Orazio (ed.), Benvenuti!, text by L. Cherubini, Rome 2000, pp. 26-27. S. Pinto, A. Mattirolo (eds.), Il Premio per la giovane arte italiana del Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee 2000. Migrazioni e Multiculturalità, exhibition catalogue (Rome, Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee), Turin 2001, pp. 38-39; 58.

Foto Patrizia Tocci

Premio per la Giovane Arte Italiana 2000

Installation