GIOVANNI GIARETTA

SELECTED WORKS

An inaccurate distanceVideo Full HD, 15’22” Italian with English subtitle2014

The video is an attempt to grasp the relationship the translator Riccardo Bertani has with the notion of dis-tance. Bertani worked as a farmer all his life and has never visited the coun-tries he has written about. The cam-era tries to portray the intimacy of his house and look for distance with-in 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 relation-ship between an entomologist with a few different species of butterfly.The gestures and the experience of an entomologist create a narrative between scientific description, lan-guage 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 thingsVideo Full HD, 7’13” 2015

The video combines the recollection of visual memories of a blind person with close-ups of transparent miner-als.The images work almost as a sce-nography open to different interpre-tations: as if to see something pre-sumed to be something else.

A thing among things, Still from video

A thing among things, Still from video

Everything into something else35x42 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 peri-ods). The camera can stand in front of them without being reflected and is able to observe the oxidized sur-face where no image can appear any-more.The film was inverted, presenting the print as a negative, so the light (nec-essary 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

BicycleBicycle, Led light, batteryVariable dimensions2011

The light lamp of the bike was previ-ously modified to charge itself when a person is cycling.The light keeps on shining in cor-respondence 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

View of the installation Motive Gallery, Amsterdam

During the entire duration of the ex-hibition Livret III at Motive Gallery in Amsterdam, the bicycle was used by the gallery owner moving from his home to the workplace.

MoonBeard mirror, clamp, LED battery, sodium chlorideVariable dimensions 2009

A small LED battery, held up by a clamp, points to a shaving mir-ror. These simple items settled together function as a rudimental projector. The mirror reflection re-calls 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 events35x42 cm C-print Series of 52014

The work consists of some images of my mother’s handwritten transcrip-tions of popular songs. She is a sing-er 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 unintention-ally 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 film01’19” loop2014

The video documents an exercise in disappearance within the space.An attempt to use the geological fea-tures of a landscape as a rudimental special effect.

https://vimeo.com/120810511Password: em

View of the installation at Fuori Campo, Siena

View of the installation at Fuori Campo, Siena

Untitled (Misteri d’Italia)06’07” loop2015

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 phenom-ena than the phenomenon itself.

The video “Untitled (misteri d’Italia)” shows a number of people interacting with the optical phenom-enon of the “gravity hill”. A street where things appear to defy grav-ity, seemingly rolling uphill and not down. The work is based on found footage and the editing underlies the relation between ordinary objects and this il-lusionary 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 - print25x35 cm2014

View of the installation

The uncanny parrotC-print40x40 cm2013

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 BaleineVideo, MiniDv, 08’25” 2011

A laboratory with blue lights. Some details of natural landscapes. Moun-tain 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 en-gine room which manages all the tanks at the Milan Aquarium, trying to observe it as a cinematographic apparatus.

http://vimeo.com/29554273password: dlb

Dans la baleine, Still from videoDans la baleine, Still from video

From the pupil of my eyes to the circle of the sunVideo 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 House140 slidesVariable 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 com-mon 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 diveVideo 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

UntitledSeries of 6 photos Variable dimensions 2008

Untitled is a work composed by se- veral pictures of lit flashlights han- ging up on the wall facing my bed. Turning off the lights, this image ap- proximately 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 Amsterdamgiovannigiaretta@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, ITVisiting professor: Susan Hiller

Solo & Duo exhibitions

2015 - WAS IT A CAT I SAW (with Simon Van Til), De Kleine Kapel, Buitenplaats Koningsweg, Arnhem, NL2015 - Valbaara. Giovanni Giaretta / Renato Leotta, Galleria FuoriCampo, Siena, IT 2014 - Extra dry, curated by Peep-hole, Milan, IT2012 - 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, NL2014 - Echo Back, curated by Stefano Coletto and Giulia Bini, Jarach Gallery, Venice, IT2013 - 5x5Castelló. Premi Internacional d’art contemprani Diputació de Castelló, curated by Alvaro de los AngelesCastellló, SP2013 - T-A-X-I, curated by Almanac and Cripta74, Almanac Project, London, ENG2013 - La plupart du temps, curated by Martial Deflacieux, La Tôlerie, Clermont-Ferrand, FR2012 - Out of Focus, curated by Nicola Genovese and Caterina Benvegnù, 365 architetti, Padua, IT2012 - 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, IT2011 - Livret III, curated by Irmavep Club, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam, NL2011 - 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, B2010 - Luna Park Party, curated by Cherimus Association, Perdaxius , IT(c) 2010 - L’arpa Magica, Lucie Fontaine, Milan, IT2010 - Titolo Grosso, Cripta 747, Turin, IT2008 - I sette arcobaleni, curated by Matteo Rubbi, Careof, Milan, IT2007 - 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, BL2014 - Autumn Screening, curated by Almanac Project, Spazio Borgogno, Turin, IT2014 - VISIO, curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, Villa Romana, Florece, IT2013 - Q.I, curated by Adriana Rispoli, Naples, IT2013 - TEATROЯOTATE, curated by Laurent Montaron, Villa Medici, Roma, It2012 - Helicotrema, curated by Blauer Hase, Serra dei Giardini, Venezia, Italy, IT (c)2010 - LOOP - Video Art Festival, Screening curated by Francesca di Nardo, Barcelona, SP2008 - 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. NL2012 - Artist in residence, Macro, Roma, IT2010 - 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, NL2013 - The Impossible hour, screening projection curated by Giovanni Giaretta, Macro Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Roma, IT2011 - 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, IT2010 - 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 Pub-lishing2012 - Atelier BLM Notebook 2011. Artists of Bevilacqua La Masa Ateliers, Molesikine Press2011 - To see an object, to see the light, Mousse Publishing

Press (selected)

Ludovico Pratesi, Studio Visit, Exibart, January 2013Marie Bechetoille, Renverser les images et les origines, La Belle Revue, March 2012Tommaso Zanini, Case veneziane. Per artisti. Sede #1, Artribune Online, December 2011 Francesca di Nardo, Residenze d’artista, Flash Art Italia, n°294, June 2011Giovanni 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.