Aldo Giannotti

Studies 1995-2002 Accademia di Belle Arti /Carrara/ Italy Master class of painting with Professor Omar Galliani 1998 Academy of fine arts Wimbledon (London). Specialisation Photography 1999 Akademie der bildenden Künste, Munich Specialisation on aching und Photography Since 2000 founding member of the association Kforumviena www.kforumvienna.com 2002 Diploma: "Lebt und Arbeitet in Wien" Culture politics in Austria related to contemporary art Shows 1996-2002 Accademia di Belle Arti /Carrara/ Italy Participation at the Biennale" In Fieri" 1998, Carrara /Collective 2002 "K1 – art from Italy", ARThotel,Vienna, Kforumvienna /Collective 2003 "DISPLAY/art in public space" /Collective 2003 "50 cent limitation" Gallery Zukunftswerkstätte, Vienna /Single show 2003 "MITEIN_ANDERS" association Kforumvienna /Collective 2004/ January "After all, tomorrow is another day" Subbotnik, Vienna /Single show 2004/ February, artist of the month, Gallery Hilger artlab, Vienna 2004/ March, "Technical works", artlab, Vienna Curator: Michaela Pedratscher /Collective 2004/ Mai, "Mobile Museen", Museumsquatier Vienna, Curator: Susa Popp / Collective 2004/ August, "Grand Prix", VIDEOTHEKA, WUK Vienna /Collective 2004/ October, Folge 02, association To be continued, Vienna /Collective 2005/ January, UPDATE, Künstlerhaus, Vienna ,curator Esel/Collective 2005/ March, LEERE, Berlin ,curator Wofgang Kraus/Collective 2005/ May, SMILE!, gallery Senko,Viborg-Denmark /single show 2005/ August, Un´altra spiaggia, Massa /Collective 2005/ November, Hot spots, Sammlung Essl, Vienna,curator Christine Humpl/Collective 2005/ November, senkoframe , gallery Senko, Viborg-Denmark ,curator Frank Franzen/single show Scholarships and supports 1998 Erasmus in Wimbledon (London) 1999 Scholarship des Reissmüller Fonds, Munich 2002 Prize of the "Bank Austria ", Vienna 2003 Project support of the "Viennaer Integrationsfonds", Vienna testo critico PREFACE By Emanuele Guidi Aldo Giannotti's work relates with people's needs and desires and describes those components, which render mankind, weak and vulnerable, facing routine. They speak about the dreams and hopes that lay within all of us and about those fears and anxiousness which sprouts of them. Each work is a direct and explicit message, intending to engage the spectator in an unfiltered dialogue. Since the very beginning the author's intentions appear explicit and straightforward, but it's only afterward that the level of communication heaves with new hues and meanings. His efforts serve as warning screams raised against the audience leaving their echoes to reverberate between stomach and brain. That is how Dream is Destiny and Wir wollten Austronauten sein were born, shrieks materializing on walls and empty facades of buildings: two photo installations, casting a glance at the binominal between desire and disillusion, undividable from each other and irremovable from human nature. Dream is Destiny appears as an imposing writing on a wall, designed to strike the observer and seduce him as an advertisement, only to disclose, at a closer look, that those words (Dream is destiny) were actually made of 120 snapshots of children holding a sign in revealing there personal hopes. Like in a game that belongs to the memory of everyone, Giannotti wanted that these children, questioning "When I grow up I want to be...", would ask us: "dream is destiny?". With the same impact Wir wollten Austronauten sein presents itself in form of a message painted on the gray and empty walls of buildings. The words, taken from posts of lonley hearts searching for companionship, becomes in this case a warning to reflect and remember, with irony, what we desired to be, suggested by the title of the work We wanted to be Astronauts. This work does not however place judgment but the will of the artist to question himself on the chooses made and his expectations. The video, 50 cents limitation, that follows chronologically these two works, reassumes, in a loop of a couple of minutes, the evolving emotion of desire, that gets put out-of-focus by external reasons into a renouncing disenchantment. The actions of the three children that, to break open an automatic candy distributor and the following failure, shows us innocently the passions that guide the human nature to the point of what are considered his ethical limits. The idea of becoming director of elements extrapolated from reality also repeats itself in the work After all tomorrow is another day... in which the artist puts in exhibition his thoughts about the world of art. Involving the artists that participate at the exhibition, puts them in the situation of co-actors in an action at the limit of protestation. Each one holds up in front of the spectator, not a personal message but his own curriculum vitae, that comes to cancel physical and artistic identity. With a critical approach and the ironic hope recalled by the famous line in Gone with the wind, Giannotti makes himself herald of a youthful artistic situation in which he works in. On the wake of this work Grand Prix, evolves a video-installation, that sketches a representative of the game of art. Reproducing the race of marbles on the beach, begins a race, in which there are no loosers or winners, but only undiscussed participants, who are none other than the most esteemed contemporary artists: every judgment and critic fades in the rumble of racing motors that fills the hall and in the classical image of the marble distributor, container of myths. Please feed the dog turns once more to the observer. Through the eyes of a dog he becomes direct interlocutor of the performed action. The artist seeks a reaction, playing on the pitty or anger, one relates with on the request. A serie of photographs, that completes itself with the active response of a person, that feeds the dog and fills the emptiness that exists not only between the work and the benefactor, but also in a society of images that frequently speculates on certain realities avoiding however to be actively involved. It is through a nocturnal action, that Giannotti affronts the theme of Viennese black work with: an action invisible to the limits of legality to underline the problem that exists but is better to keep hidden. Sabotaging the billboards on a bus station, where immigrants from all over East-Europe turn home at night, the artist gives voice to a political and social system that is slave of its own mechanisms. Remembering the detournement situationists, he sticks five big sentences, in five different ex-yugoslavian languages, the propose please come back to visite us, as a parodic reinterpretation. The serie of photographs completes itself with the musical installation, realized in cooperation with the Greek composer Alexios Porfyriadis, in which Russian, Slovak, Bulgarian, and Croatian traditional songs become mixed with a Viennese waltz, creating the soundtrack of a story of difficult integration. The languages and symbols of the publicity world in which the artist frequently has to adapt to create a personal communication system are brought to an extreme in the Smile video installation. The aggressiveness in this work is none other than the direct consequence of a reflection on the instrumentation of a smile, its value and its significance of happiness and desire. In the last video installation of Giannotti it is once more a child in the leading role. One more glance towards the spectator, accusing and in wait of a reply. The screeching noise of chalk on the board that invades the area, creates irritation, to the point that one is forced to cover his ears. Another message that appears inside the observer, like a sense of responsibility, while the child vanishes and leaves the emptiness and fear of it: Horror Vacui. Continuing to put himself up against the infinite stimulates of the system, the artist regenerates and evolves those themes that are connected to his poetry of communication. The social and political aspects, the intimate and emotional contents cross one another in his stylistic research to satisfy the need to narrate and vagabond for those that are the sectors of inquiry of the human desire.