Alessandro Di Pietro

Lives and works in Milan, Italy

Artist statement

Alessandro Di Pietro’s practice draws on the narrative structures of cinema and the blurred images of speculative fiction. He creates works that are the result of obsessive research, systematically rejecting synthesis and embracing com- plexity as a methodological approach. His sculptures, films, and installations are moving constella- tions of works in which temporal layers overlap and blur, open formulations where artistic references intertwine with bio- graphical ones. Amidst this multitude of lateral shifts, certain recurring moti- fs emerge in his practice: complicity with the monstrous, the grotesque, and otherness as an elusive dimension; narration as a device to transport the work elsewhere while simultane- ously rooting it in a broader context; and art history as an architecture to be dismantled. With this methodology comes his latest project, Ghostwriting Paul Thek: Time Capsules and Reliquaries, which Di Pietro dedicates to the artist Paul Thek (1933–1988). The project consists of producing a core body of new works con- ceived in relation to the life and research of the American ar- tist and attributed to him posthumously. Consciously blending reality and fiction, Alessandro Di Pietro evokes Thek’s endu- ring and spectral impact on contemporary artists’ work.

Artwork