© ACP - Palazzo Franchetti | Ph. Jacopo La Forgia
Giorgio Andreotta Calò is the winner of the first edition of the ACP Green Art Award, the ward founded in 2021 by ACP - Palazzo Franchetti and by the company Art Capital Partners, with the patronage of MITE - Ministry of Ecological Transition, in order to catalyze proposals and creative energies on the urgent theme of the conservation of the planet and renewable energies. The award is addressed to an artist or a collective of artists working on the themes of sustainability and becoming an active tool for disseminating issues related to the great global challenges such as clean water and sanitation, climate change, clean and affordable energy, sustainable cities e communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life under water, life on land, all objectives included in 2030 Agenda for sustainable development of the United Nations.
The winner of this first edition, selected by the jury of experts is Giorgio Andreotta Calò, chosen for his ability to manifest in his own artistic research, the complex dialectic between anthropic and natural element, the difficult and magnificent co-existence between man and nature.
GIORGIO ANDREOTTA CALÒ
Born in Venice in 1979. Calò lives and works between Italy and the Netherlands.
He studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and at the Kunsthochschule Berlin, graduating in 2005 with a thesis about Gordon Matta-Clark.
Between 2001 and 2007 he was assistant to Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. In 2008 he moved to the Netherlands where he was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2009-2011). In 2011 Calo's work has been presented at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale directed by Bice Curiger.
In 2012 he won the Premio Italia for contemporary art promoted by MAXXI Museum in Rome with the work Prima che sia notte (Before night falls). Between 2012 and 2013 he has been artist in residence at the Centre National d'Art Contemporain in Villa Arson, Nice, France. In 2014 he won the Premio New York, sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 2017 Calò is one of the three artists invited to represent Italy in the pavilion curated by Cecilia Alemani under the 57th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale. With the project Anastasis, in 2017 he won the second edition of the Italian Council grant awarded by the MiBACT (Italian Ministry of Culture), which supported the monumental installation realized in 2018 at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.
In 2019 he realized the exhibition CITTÀDIMILANO at Pirelli HangarBicocca.
THE THREE ARTWORKS IN COMPETITION
Pinna Nobilis
Made in bronze, the sculptures produced by Calò from 2014 onwards portray specimens of Pinna Nobilis in their actual size. Next to the central body formed by the shell, the metal casting channels and the "embouchure" are integral parts of the sculpture, traces of the lost wax casting process and, at the same time, supporting elements of the work itself. In some cases the original shell is contained within the bronze, emphasising the coexistence of the natural and the anthropic element, the alchemical transmutation between them.
The Pinna Nobilis series brings to light many themes that are recurrent in the artist's practice: notably, his view of the landscape, in particular the Venice lagoon, from which Andreotta Calò extracts fragments and reworks them into objects that possess a strong, symbolic and evocative charge. The symmetric form of Pinna Nobilis also recalls the symbology of the double as a vehicle of investigation for the present, suspended between reality and virtual representation.
Carotaggio (Venezia)
With the "Venice Core Sampling" extracted since 2014 from the underground of the lagoon involving a specialized company, several layers of material have come to light including Caranto, an extremely compact overconsolidated clay that forms the hard bedrock that literally supports the foundations of the city of Venice.
Beneath this layer, there is a freshwater aquifer. Its extraction due to intensive ultilization of water in the cooling plants of the industries of the petrochemical hub of Marghera, has triggered a phenomenon of subsidence: the sinking of the caranto layer thus represents a subsidence of the supporting column of Venice. Several themes on which Giorgio Andreotta Calò develops his artistic research can be found in these works: the representation of time, the mutability of matter, and a reflection on the lagoon of Venice, whose elements subtracted from the landscape and reworked by the artist become objects able to carry universal meanings.
Untitled (in girum imus nocte)
The work is the outcome of a larger survey project started in 2013 in the Sulcis Iglesiente territory in southwestern Sardinia, during which Andreotta Calò spent long periods of time working, moving inland from the mining park between Carbonia and Nuraxi Figus to the Island of Sant'Antioco and the surrounding lagoon area.
His interest in the activities that characterize the area's identity led the artist to collaborate with various local figures, including Carbosulcis employees and some local fishermen. On several occasions, in fact, the artist descended with miners into the mining facilities of Carbosulcis, 500 meters deep: one of these descents is documented in the film and is its starting point.