Gian Maria Tosatti, born in Rome in 1980, is a visual artist, director and journalist. His research in the field of visual arts and their connection with architecture has led him to the creation of many projects and installations conceived for city spaces. He lives in Naples.
A few days ago Gian Maria Tosatti presented his "Storia della notte e destino delle comete" (The Story of the night and destiny of comets), the project for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennial 2022, as a work that draws lessons from Pier Paolo Pasolini, the writer who for Tosatti is the greatest of our twentieth century, and from the teaching of Anna Maria Ortese who invited to the "duty of iron", that is to indicate a perspective that suggested an exit from darkness.
He then spoke of human destructiveness, alluding to the dreaded war in Ukraine, to the risk of losing ourselves, to the reality of reviewing in a Greek tragedy the same mechanisms of the present, and entrusted art with the ability to stimulate in the veins of each one the fire of an energy that generates catharsis, that pushes us towards what we should be.
Eugenio Viola, the curator of the Italian Pavilion, adds: "The Story of the Night and Destiny of Comets narrates the difficult balance between man and nature, between sustainable development and territory, between ethics and profit, proposing an aesthetic reading of this inclusive and in-depth scenario around these themes. The exhibition is structured with a theatrical structure that articulates the narration in a prologue and two acts: The Story of the Night and The Fate of Comets."
That this is Gian Maria Tosatti's year is now clear to everyone. The double nomination received this year, which also sees him as Artistic Director of the Quadriennale in Rome, launches him into the empyrean of Italian contemporary art.
The challenge that Tosatti (who is also the author of a very recent publication on Experience and Reality) will have to face in the next three years of his mandate as artistic director of the Roman Quadriennale, which celebrates its 95th anniversary in 2022, is that of carrying out a profound revision of its activities, in terms of method and systematic action. These words are at the basis of the entire program for the three-year period 2022-2024, while waiting for the great Quadrennial exhibition scheduled for 2025, which may be held in the new space dedicated to it at the Arsenale Clementino di Porta Portese in Rome.
The artist works on abandoned places, drawing poetry and hidden life from them. They are silent installations, intimate and common to every user. In his works the abandonment, the destruction of time and man are able to reverse their sense, creating personal spaces, hybrids and full of meaning.