Gianni Motti

Original digital printing 

H.74 x W.60,5 cm

H.89,5 x W.76 cm (with frame)

Bio

1958 Born in Sondrio, Italy. Gianni Motti is now based in Geneva, where " [he] leads an exemplary life ».

1986 In a missive addressed to the Ansa press agency, he claims the explosion of the Challenger shuttle.

1997 Gianni Motti crashes a session of the Commission on Human Rights at the UN (Geneva). He steals the empty seat of the Indonesian delegate. His speech in favor of ethnic minorities hits the nail on the head. Several representatives of different ethnic groups, touched by the verve of their Indonesian counterpart, leave the room. The session was interrupted.

2005 "Mani Pulite": Gianni Motti makes a soap bar from the fat of Silvio Berlusconi, a fat recovered from the Swiss clinic where the Italian chairman of the board has just had a liposuction. Berlusconi was mentioned several times in the famous anti-corruption operation "Clean Hands", which gives its name to this work.

2015 "Cosa Mentale": exhibition (collective) at the Centre Pompidou Metz, on telepathy in 20th century art.

Libération 2016

Sans titre (Untitled)

By Gianni Motti (1958, Italie)

"I was with French friends when I received the invitation to participate in this project. We were talking about Europe, so we thought: why not take the front page of the referendum on the European Constitution of 2005? Why not, ten years later, stir up the knife a little? Even if they had voted yes, my friends thought it was abnormal that the choice of the French had not been taken into account. I remember that at the time of the referendum, I was in Venice to prepare the Biennale. I had certainly seen the front page of Libé on the newsstands, but in Italy as a whole, this episode had hardly been mentioned. There's something apocalyptic about this cover. In fact, the artist Arsène Heitz, who designed the European flag, once said that he found inspiration in the book of Revelation according to Saint John. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is described in the book as follows: "The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is described in the book of Revelation as followsA great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."... Finally, it's funny to see presidents advocating secularism giving their speeches today in front of such a flag. Libération is famous for its very sober headlines and puns in the titles. So the dilemma, when it came time to speak, was: what more could be done? Perhaps the "attack" was too strong and, like aikido, I responded with the most minimal gesture possible. In this almost nothing, there is a reversal of the balance of power. Moreover, by turning the page vertically, it creates a visual disturbance. Everything is reversed except the "NO" which remains as it is. I like to disturb a bit. Provoking, getting out of line. It's part of my job. And then I like performance. I can't be satisfied with the gallery. Besides, I don't have a studio as such. My workshop is a green and red Mexican hammock. I lie down in it and, carried by gravity, ideas come to me. If my work is necessarily nourished by what surrounds it, for a while now, I keep my distance from current events. I'm on a media diet. This is to keep my optimism, because, as the saying goes, "a pessimist is a well-informed optimist" ... ".

EN