Berlin-based Italian artist Luca Vitone has worked across painting, installation, sound, and performance since the 1980s. Delving into the construction and representation of place, Vitone considers how cultural production shapes the identities of a site across time.
Read MoreBorn in Genoa, Vitone studied in the DAMS (Discipline of the Arts, Music and Entertainment) at the University of Bologna from 1985 to 1990. Since 2006, he has taught at Milan's New Academy of Fine Arts.
Luca Vitone's conceptually driven practice examines the material, immaterial, or cultural dimensions of a place—whether visual, linguistic, or sensory. He may hone in on a specific aspect of a culture, such as its music, food, or political system, or an historic event, and consider the broader anthropological context to reflect on the intersections of geographic, cultural, or sociopolitical identities.
From early in his career, Vitone has explored the theoretical implications of cartography and place, picking apart the entwinement of politics and geography. During a period of political dissolution and unrest in Italy and Germany, the artist produced 'Carte Atopiche' (Atopic Maps) (1988), a series of maps rendered abstract with the removal of all topographic indicators. For 'Non siamo mai soli' (We Are Never Alone) (1994), Vitone presented various domestic objects along with a hand-drawn map of his former home, in a pseudo-ethnographic commentary on symbolic geography and the formation of identity through material culture in an era of mass production.
Vitone's interest in place extends to the realm of institutional critique, with works made in response to the conditions of making and exhibiting art. Galleria Pinta (1988) saw the artist present a to-scale replica of the Genoa gallery in which he first exhibited, while in 1993 Vitone published Il Luogo dell'Arte (The place of art) (1991–1992) in the advert spaces of art magazines, comprising drawings of the floor plans of various art galleries. Anthony Iannacci wrote for Artforum: '... Vitone relies on both our preconceptions about these galleries and speculation as to what his role inside of their structures might be, but then he negates our expectations by displaying only schematic, utilitarian floor plans.'
Vitone's integration of site-specific materials in his work can be observed in his paintings, which are often referred to as 'portraits' of a place and may appear as cryptic imprints of a bygone civilisation.
The artist's 2008 exhibition Ich, Rosa Luxemburg Platz featured 13 abstract canvases marked with three months' accumulation of the effects of the weather and external surroundings, including dust, rain, sunlight, smog, and dirt. As Barbara Buchmaier wrote for Artforum: '[Vitone's practice] reactivates discussions of site specificity and prompts contemplation of the role of contemporary art as a conceptual motor that drives viewers to question how actions inscribe themselves in places.'
'Räume' (Rooms) (2014) comprised four expansive monochromatic 'watercolours' on paper, each representing an institution of the German state: the economic, the judiciary, the legislative, and the cultural. Each work was created from dust collected from the respective institutions, bringing to light the material residues of institutions of power.
Similarly, the immaterial olfactory installation Imperium (2014) comprised a variety of custom fragrances harnessing an otherwise empty space. Produced in collaboration with master perfumer Maria Candida Gentile, Vitone's work aimed to evoke an atmosphere of authority and trigger observers to recall collective experiences under regimes of power. The manipulation of sensory experience was also seen in Vitone's work for the 55th Venice Biennale, Per l'eternità (For Eternity) (2013). In response to the deadly dispersion of asbestos in the air by the company Eternit in Casale Monferrato, the artist developed a scent which mimicked the smell of asbestos.
Barbara Casavecchia wrote for Frieze: 'Vitone subtly plays with the viewer's emotional responses by evoking sensations and atmospheres—an increasingly manufactured experience in the age of art-as-entertainment. ... Vitone doesn't elicit irritation or revulsion by documentary or didactic means: quite simply, he makes you feel it.'
For Romanistan (2019), Vitone journeyed from Bologna in Italy to Chandigarh, India, tracing the migrations of Romani and Sinti people from the 8th to the 14th century. Positioning his own identity as an itinerant artist alongside the transnational Romani population, Vitone reflected upon ideas of community, tradition, intergenerational memory, and place as it relates to cultural production in the resulting film and accompanying documentary photobook.
Luca Vitone has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows since the 1980s.
Select solo exhibitions include D'après (De Pisis – Paolini), Novecento Museum, Florence (2022); Io, Villa Adriana and Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (MAXXI), Rome (2021); Macht, Weserburg Museum für Moderne Kunst, Bremen (2021); Romanistan, Magazzino Italian Art, New York (2020); Il Canone, CSAC Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Parma (2020).
Select group exhibitions include Museum for Preventive Imagination – Editorial, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO) (2020); Oh les beaux jours (Happy Days), Michel Rein, Paris (2020); Images of Italy, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan (2019); You Got To Burn To Shine, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome (2019).
Vitone's works are held in collections throughout Europe including the Dena Foundation, Paris; EVN Sammlung, Vienna; Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GAMeC), Bergamo; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Museo MAGA, Gallarate; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (MART); MAXXI, Rome; Museo del Novecento, Milan; Museion, Bolzano; Museo Ettore Fico, Torino; RISO, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo; Nomas Foundation, Rome; n.b.k., Berlin.
Vitone's website can be found here.
Misong Kim | Ocula | 2022
