Gianni Motti

B.P.S.22 Space for Contemporary Creation, Charleroi-Gilly

A purchase statement of Italian state bonds and a black frame containing the word 'swap' in white on a black background are the only pieces visible in the otherwise empty 1500 square meters of exhibition space.

comunicato stampa

Curated by Pierre-Olivier Rollin

For his new solo exhibition at B.P.S.22 (Charleroi, Belgium), Gianni Motti once again poses a radical gesture in the aim of making a strong point and direct critique at the preoccupying situation of the international financial crisis. A purchase statement of Italian state bonds and a black frame containing the word 'swap' in white on a black background are the only pieces visible in the otherwise empty 1500 square meters of exhibition space.

The material humility of this 'swap' in the former industrial hall is further amplified by the surrounding emptiness. Yet, the exhibition space has never been quite so charged with a tangible intensity, to the extent that it truly gives body to the piece. The simplicity of the voluntarily sober enunciation thus condenses intensively the ungraspable excessiveness of the financial markets in their frenetic movements in a sort of 'big crunch.' Formally, Motti revives an old pictorial technique that consists in suggesting the unimaginable in choosing to represent its very opposite. Here, the emptiness attests to the financial overflow that now shakes the world.

Buying 'BTP Italia' state bonds of the Italian public debt, Motti recalls the migratory—thus financial—fluxes that link Belgium to Italy, especially Charleroi, the city of immigration per se. Most of all, he raises the issue of state finances, a veritable ideological stake because of its national sovereignty. We enter into the contradiction that exists between financial and political power, as one always weighs more on the other until the decision centres of democracies tumble over.

D+T Project presents from April 21 to May 19, 2012 a solo exhibition of Gianni Motti, La Grande Illusion.
Rue Bosquetstraat 4, 1060 Brussels www.dt-project.com / info@dt-project.com / +32 2 537 76 30 / +32 494 62 43 13

Image: swap, view of the exhibition, B.P.S.22, 2012. Photo by Denis Vancauteren.

B.P.S.22 space for contemporary creation
Boulevard Solvay 22
6000 Charleroi, Belgium
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–18

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