Presentation of the monograph on Alberto Garutti, edited by Studio Celant
Museion Passage
Museion hosts the national première presentation of the first complete monograph on Alberto Garutti (1948-2023), the artist who redefined the way of doing public art in Italy. Garutti’s story is also particularly interwoven with that of Museion due to the work he created in Bolzano’s Don Bosco district in 2003: the Piccolo Museion - Cubo Garutti. The presentation of the monograph, in fact, is linked to the exhibition currently on display until 1st September: Piccolo Museion – Cubo Garutti. Un racconto (A story). This show celebrates the 20th anniversary of this important work of public architecture, dedicated - in the words of Alberto Garutti himself - to “all passers-by who stop to look, even for just an instant”.
Published by a+mbookstore in Italian and by Hatje Cantz in English, the book covers the key transformations in the art of Garutti, the artist, lecturer and one of the most influential figures on the Italian and European art scene in the last fifty years. The monograph will be in bookshops from September 2024 onwards.
Conceived by Germano Celant and completed by Studio Celant, the volume contains an essay by Antonella Soldaini, a historical and critical timeline from 1948 to 2023 created by Eva Fabbris (who was also responsible for the scientific research), seven previously unpublished themed texts by Alberto Garutti written specifically for this monograph, and a wide range of illustrations and documents narrating the artistic journey of an artist who, following his début in the 1970s, always sought to question the role and ethical responsibility of the artist in contemporary society.
The aim of the book, which has maintained a monographic and chronological quality in line with the Celant method, was to highlight, through a dense time sequence of the major events that took place in Garutti’s career, the experimental value of his language, based on certain key concepts that have become indispensable over the years for anyone tackling the theme of site-specific artistic production. These include respect for the place where the work is located, a focus on the social reality that surrounds it and an in-depth knowledge of the context.
Themes such as the anti-monument idea, non-invasiveness, sharp criticism of the institutional landscape, the role of the spectator, the founding concept of the work as a form of open interaction and conversation are just some of the central steps in Garutti’s artistic experience, which the volume addresses through three different, transversal and parallel critical registers. These are a historical-critical reading, an account of the artistic and biographical facts and the author’s personal story at the end of over fifty years of life in art.
This first public presentation will include a conversation with Antonella Soldaini, Curatorial Consultant and Head of Research at Studio Celant, Lorenzo Balbi, the Artistic Director of MAMbo in Bologna and Francesco Garutti, the Associate Director of the CCA in Montreal and the artist’s son, moderated by Frida Carazzato, Museion’s scientific curator.
The volume has been produced thanks to the support of Italian Council (12th edition 2023), a program designed to promote contemporary Italian art by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Presentation of the monograph on Alberto Garutti, edited by Studio Celant
Event29.08.2024, 19:00
Location: Museion Passage
