Massimo Agostinelli

Massimo Agostinelli
Born Massimo Constantin Emanuel Agostinelli
(1987-09-25) September 25, 1987
London, England
Nationality Italian American
Alma mater Webster University
Known for Visual arts
Website massimoagostinelli.com

Massimo Agostinelli (/ɑːɡoʊstɪˈnɛlɪ/; born 25 September 1987) is a Swiss based Italian American artist who uses word play[1] and found objects in his works.

Early life

Agostinelli was born in London to Robert Agostinelli, a businessman,[2] and Pascale Gallais Agostinelli, a sculptor. Growing up in New York,[3] he attended 14 different schools, battling dyslexia, ADHD, and LLI. He graduated from Webster University.[4] Back in London, Agostinelli became an apprentice printmaker and type setter.[5][6]

Career

His first art series, Palindromes, consisted of mirror sheets imprinted with iconic images from art, history and popular culture, overlaid with humorous palindromes.[7] His Anagrams examined pop-culture icons by morphing their names into witty anagrams[8] by means of lenticular printing.[9] In 2016 Agostinelli was selected by Simon de Pury[10] to exhibit at Dallas Contemporary for the MTV Staying Alive Foundation.[11] In 2017 he participated in "the first Instagram curated art exhibition" by Avant Arte and Unit London.[12] Agostinelli is also a founding patron of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.[13]

At the 2017 Art Basel fair in Switzerland, Agostinelli grabbed a steel trashcan and wrote "la plus belle" on top of it with an acrylic marker. (In French, it means "the most beautiful", but it is also a pun on "poubelle", French for "garbage bin".) He placed the bin in front of the art booths of Hauser & Wirth and White Cube, where it stood for several hours. Then he bought the bin — now elevated to a work of art — from the fair organizers for €100 and included it in his exhibitions, reworking it into sculptural versions made of marble, wood, glass, bronze, and gold. It was hailed; "one of the most engaging works made in 2017" by a member of the Nahmad clan.[2] Artnet praised the performance art installation by stating; Agostinelli "turned trash cans into treasure",[14] while Vanity Fair drew reference to Marcel Duchamp.[15]

Agostinelli returned to the fair in 2018 during the VIP opening, placing a basil plant[16] in the Gagosian Gallery booth directly in front of a John Chamberlain sculpture flanked by Roy Lichtenstein and Mark Rothko works. As another nod to the Basel/Basil pun, he turned the water in the fountain outside the Messeplatz green on opening day, which was later dubbed "the green invasion" by Diana Picasso.[17]

Solo exhibitions

  • Palindromes, London, 2014
  • Anagrams, New York, 2015

References

  1. ↑ "17 Up and Coming Artists on Instagram Who Could Make You Rich". Culture Trip. 24 October 2017.
  2. 1 2 "How a Roguish Artist Set Out to Prank the Art World With an Art Basel Trash Can—and a Little Help From the Nahmads". Artnet News. 5 September 2017.
  3. ↑ "About Time You Met: Massimo Agostinelli". About Time Magazine. 27 April 2017.
  4. ↑ "Hold Fast Arts Club to Show Some Daring Art at Venue Cafe Royal Hotel London". Widewalls. 11 December 2015.
  5. ↑ "The text artist Massimo Agostinelli". Fad Magazine. 21 May 2018.
  6. ↑ "Maxwell Hosts Massimo Agostinelli's 'Anagrams' Exhibit at Hoerle-Guggenheim Gallery". Observer. 23 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "Debut UK exhibition by Massimo Agostinelli at Hus Gallery, London, sells out on opening night". Spear's. 26 May 2015.
  8. ↑ "Massimo Agostinelli's Clever Word-Play". Whitewall Magazine. 3 November 2015.
  9. ↑ "Massimo Agostinelli Exhibition "Anagrams" Unveils Dual Meanings of Phrases". Widewalls. 22 October 2015.
  10. ↑ "MTV RE:DEFINE in Partnership with de PURY". Paddle8. 13 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "MTV RE:DEFINE Curated by Neville Wakefield at Dallas Contemporary". MTV RE:DEFINE. 13 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "London Exhibition Explores the Phenomenon of Art Popularized on Instagram". Artnet News. 11 January 2017.
  13. ↑ "Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa". Zeitz MOCAA. 1 January 2018.
  14. ↑ "From the Finale to Salvador Dalí's Surreal Paternity Saga to Thomas Campbell's Starry Rise and Fall: The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week". Artnet News. 10 September 2017.
  15. ↑ "The fascinating French saga of fashion that made an appearance at the Dior party". Vanity Fair. 23 November 2017.
  16. ↑ "All art-loving celebrities flock to Art Basel". Schweizer Illustrierte. 14 June 2018.
  17. ↑ "A Punning Artist Turned Art Fair Prankster Plants a Pot of 'Art Basil' at Gagosian's Booth". Artnet News. 15 June 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.