ARTE FIERA OBSERVATORY

Giorgio Andreotta Calò
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Giorgio Andreotta Calò (b. Venice, 1979) lives and works in Italy and Holland. He studied sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and at the Kunsthochschule in Berlin. In 2008, he moved to Holland, where he was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2009-2011). In 2011, his work was presented at the 54th Venice Biennial, directed by Bice Curiger. In 2012, he won the Premio Italia for contemporary art, promoted by Museo MAXXI in Rome, and in 2014 he moved to New York with a scholarship provided by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2017, he was one of the three artists invited to represent Italy in the Pavilion curated by Cecilia Alemani at the 57th Venice Biennial. That same year, his Anastasis project won the Italian Council competition promoted by MiBACT for the creation of a monumental installation presented at Oude Kerk in Amsterdam in 2018. In 2019, a large retrospective of his works was held at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan.
For Art City 2021, he has created the site-specific project "Ellissi" at the LabOratorio degli Angeli, curated by Leonardo Regano.

I remember this car parked inside barriers and I couldn’t understand why. There were people standing all around, like they were waiting for something to happen.
Then a crane came, with a boulder attached to the harness. The crane started pounding the boulder on the car, which crumpled up like tin foil. There was an artist giving instruction on how the car had to be crushed.
I think it was outside the Bologna Fair, near the cement towers, some years ago.
I don’t know if it really happened, if it was Bologna or another city. That’s how I connect it all now.
I think it was Jimmie Durham giving instructions to the crane… I looked for it on the web but didn’t find any photos with the Bologna Fair, and the car didn’t seem red, but a different colour…. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was Bologna and that the work was Durham’s, outside the fair on one of the days of Arte Fiera.
 

Cale op