Fashion

At the Italian Pavilion, Gian Maria Tosatti Presents Industry and Nature in Two Acts

For the first time in its history, the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale has elected one artist as a representative, as opposed to its habitual group exhibition. It was the decision of curator Eugenio Viola, but ultimately the ambitious spirit of artist Gian Maria Tosatti and the support of Valentino, that made it possible to pull off perhaps one of the most compelling presentations Italy has shown to date. Composed of a sequence of abandoned factory floors and bedrooms, Tosatti’s haunted house installation, “History of Night and Destiny of Comets,” mediates on the labor we don’t see and that, as a result, we are all slowly losing to automation. Here, Viola, Tosatti and Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli respond to how the ephemeral experience of walking through this artwork connects to the real world.

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