If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube
big letters, various materials, Luca Rossi 2022.
Order a pizza to be delivered to Berlin’s Neue Nationagalerie during opening hours. Order from around the world
pizza orders, pizza arrival, museum workers action, Luca Rossi 2022.
The pizza boxes representing the “ground zero” of content, look like the fleshed-out structure of an Instagram content. They resemble the dystopian scenario inside the air conditioners of the Fondazione Prada in Venice (Luca Rossi, 2019). Pizza containers become the base over which museum workers can write IMG and 4 random numbers. These new works can be signed “Luca Rossi” and hung in the museum with the title, “If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube.” MORE INFO >>> info@documenta.live
Text and captions of works below
“The only political space left, to make a change or a revolution, is our private dimension; in this dimension artists should install their works.” LR
Blind Works (#OpenArtBasel)
works in which 3 artists meet and which are enclosed inside wooden crates with the addition of the three artists, Luca Rossi 2022, written on them.
First case: Danh Vo + Koons + Gates —– Second case: Bacon + Eliasson + Beuys
The works can only be imagined and oppose the continuous preview of reality provided by the digital world. Only the collector, when OFFLINE in his private dimension, can see the work once it arrives at his home. Here through the #OpenArtBasel project you can personalize your artwork that will arrive directly to your home: https://www.documenta.live/art-basel-miami-blind-works/
Luca Rossi is the most interesting personality in Italy
Luca Rossi’s “SCREEEN” project at the Neue Nationalgalerie transcends the concept of modern and postmodern to develop the new altermodern era. Luca Rossi carried out this project without ever seeing the space from life and remaining motionless in his home. The project minimized resources as much as possible to be realized.
The art exhibition arises from the manipulation of the museum’s images that were spread by the official instagram profile of the Neue Nationalgalerie. The project takes place on the surface of our screen and then has real-life fallout. As it happens in all projects of the “Luca Rossi” collective, real world and digital world merge and blur, and the work descends from a manipulation of information (text and images) that are treated as if they were “clay” to be shaped.
Each intervention descends from an important value and a keyword freely inspired by the book “Velocità di fuga” by Leonardo Caffo. MORE INFO >>> info@documenta.live
1) ECOLOGY > we cannot solve external pollution unless we first solve the pollution in our heads.
If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube
big letters, various materials, Luca Rossi 2022.
This kind of intervention has been developed by Luca Rossi since 2013: the artwork does not present yet another piece of content but a way to deal with an overload of content of which we are all producers and consumers, victims and makers. This project can be considered altermodern because it no longer focuses on content but on a way to manage information while inoculating and resisting the networks that suffocate us.
These works provide the exclusive gateway to a kind of contemporary “Sistine Chapel.” The dynamics of these interventions restore the “fluid complexity” of our present, always poised between real and digital, and resist the dictatorship of the algorithm that places human beings inside “uncritical bubbles” in which some growth and no real knowledge is possible. The algorithm regulates the production of information and content: on the one hand, we are led to believe “true” what we also previously believed to be true and, on the other hand, we are suffocated and anesthetized by this enormous amount of information.
Gilles Deleuze argued that we do not need to express ourselves, we do it far too much; we need interstices of solitude and silence to finally say “something true.” But what is true in a world where the mode of communication influences and changes the content and “truth of the facts”? The truth lies in our ability to “train new eyes.” The videos that can be reached by following the title of these speeches have the ability to train new eyes in us. They are videos that are viewed and installed in our private dimension and have unexpected and subtly poetic features.
“Fairs, exhibitions and biennials are metaphors for the present: so much information in so little space and time. Whatever is thrown at an Art Basel booth automatically takes on value. We don’t need to express ourselves, we do it far too much, we need ‘new eyes’ and a ‘new ecology of art’.”
2) WAITING > the digital world has completely stifled the value of waiting that allows us to cook and enjoy better “pies.”
Order a pizza to be delivered to Berlin’s Neue Nationagalerie during opening hours. Order from around the world
pizza orders, pizza arrival, museum workers action, Luca Rossi 2022.
Luca Rossi first implemented this project in 2009 at the Massimo De Carlo Galleries. The pizzas are the standard content that launched at an Art Basel booth automatically takes on value; they are Maurizio Cattelan’s 2019 banana at Art Basel Miami. The possibility of the pizzas’ arrival subjects the museum to a condition of continuous waiting.
The pizza boxes representing the “ground zero” of content, look like the fleshed-out structure of an Instagram content. They resemble the dystopian scenario inside the air conditioners of the Fondazione Prada in Venice (Luca Rossi, 2019). Pizza containers become the base over which museum workers can write IMG and 4 random numbers. These new works can be signed “Luca Rossi” and hung in the museum with the title, “If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube.”
“The digital world allows a continuous “preview of reality.” We know everything that happens in the world, we see works of art earlier on Instagram than in reality; this information manipulates reality and, like the undertow of a wave, leaves us with a great void.”
3) WAITING, RESPONSIBILITY and OPPORTUNITIES > the public and collector are forced to reevaluate their needs in relation to the concept of artwork.
Whatever you want
orders Amazon, Amazon parcels arrive, Luca Rossi 2022.
The public can order anything on Amazon and have it delivered to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The package can be picked up from the museum or have it installed in the museum. Anything contained in the parcel will become a work by Luca Rossi. This project goes beyond the concept of ready-made by once again focusing not so much on content as on information management (altermodern phase). As it happens in Luca Rossi’s site-specific projects, the role of spectator merges and blurs with that of author, opening up a space of embarrassment, paralysis but also opportunity. Today the ordinary person, Mr. Rossi, seems to know everything and do everything. In this case, the burden and responsibility of choice is completely delegated to the audience, opening a deep space for reflection and decompression. A space for reflection that contrasts with the digital “fast food” that often characterizes the art world and beyond.
“Anything that is thrown into an Art Basel booth or a Gucci showcase automatically takes on value. But what if you could choose what you launch?”
4) + 5) ANTICIPATION and SIMPLICITY > in order not to be swept away by the digital tsunami, we must “ride the wave” and thus find ourselves in the silence of our own home.
Through the fingertips of the left hand
traces of dust and saliva on the screen, miscellaneous materials, Luca Rossi 2022.
The only way not to suffer the continuous digital anticipation of reality is to install the work only on the surface of our screen. Only the reality that lives on our screen is “real.” This series of works originated in 2009 and features a series of sculptures made with fingertips through Apple’s tactile mouse. These works also include the traces of dust and saliva that the red of the sculptures highlight on our screen.
6) OFFLINE > a continuous preview of reality stifles our imagination and the surprise effect, which are key elements in “training new eyes.”
Blind Works (#OpenArtBasel)
works in which 3 artists meet and which are enclosed inside wooden crates with the addition of the three artists, Luca Rossi 2022, written on them.
First case: Danh Vo + Koons + Gates —– Second case: Bacon + Eliasson + Beuys
Luca Rossi’s Blind Works project was born in 2014 and allows for the personalization of a work of art by having three modern or contemporary artists who are chosen by the public or collector meet in the work. This project, which we could call “altermodern,” goes beyond the concept of modern and postmodern in that it puts the focus no longer on the content but on the management of information that allows us to have the “most personalized possible” content; at the same time these works inoculate themselves into networks that stifle imagination and surprise effect. The works can only be imagined and oppose the continuous preview of reality provided by the digital world. Only the collector, when OFFLINE in his private dimension, can see the work once it arrives at his home. Here through the #OpenArtBasel project you can personalize your artwork that will arrive directly to your home: https://www.documenta.live/art-basel-miami-blind-works/
“The only political space left, to make a change or a revolution, is our private dimension; in this dimension artists should install their works.”
6) ECOLOGY 2 and 3 >
If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube
big letters, various materials, Luca Rossi 2022.
If you don’t understand something look it up on YouTube
video projection, Luca Rossi 2022.
This video projection documents the making of an IMG 3733 sign. The craftsmanship of what appears to be a “handmade” photomontage provides greater complexity to the dynamics of this work, which becomes the exclusive gateway to a kind of contemporary Sistine Chapel.
7) ANTICIPATION, ECOLOGY and OFFLINE >
Lumbung Orationes
Google searches related to Documenta 15 intercepted at www.documenta.live, streaming video, online search for possible effects of prayer, Luca Rossi 2022.
People who were in Kassel or doing Google searches related to Documenta 15 saw the live streaming of a large collective prayer that was taking place in Kassel’s BergPark in the heart of Europe. A Voodoo prayer, where there were also elements of other religions, for something significant to happen in the world during the opening of Documenta 15 in the summer of 2022. Subsequently the possible effects of the prayer were sought in the flow of information that came from all over the world. A concatenation of events that in some way could actually be linked to the realization of this prayer.
In this case, it is as if one of the videos in the IMG series was made site specific with respect to a specific geographic location and with respect to a specific social and political context. People had to decide whether to believe what they saw on their screen or go and see for themselves what was happening at the BergPark in Kassel. This project was a declination of an intervention carried out in Trentino Alto Adige in the summer of 2018.
CRITICISM, THE FIGHT, THE FUTURE: LUCA ROSSI
In the Italian contemporary art scene there is a figure of considerable interest. Luca Rossi–artist/ collective, critic, curator, and blogger–is a controversial personality who works in anonymity, as some kind of Anonymous of the Art System. In Luca Rossi’s philosophy, the ego no longer exists because anyone can be Luca Rossi, at the same time that the “critical process”, the virtual space of the Internet, and the real context no longer have boundaries and blend into one.
“Luca Rossi” was born in 2009 from the severe critical context that he himself triggered. “Evolved Ikea”, “Young Indiana Jones Syndrome”, “Smart-relativism”, “Grandparents and Parents Foundation”, are just some of the keywords around which Luca Rossi has been developing a daily critical work. Critical concepts that affect an entire generation of artists forced to confront a century as dense as the twentieth century. This critical work has allowed him to anticipate a fusion and confusion of roles that we can now see very well in a role that we could define as “spectauthor”. Luca Rossi’s unconventional projects arise from a manipulation of information that is treated exactly as if it were clay to be moulded, long before the concept of “fake news” became so important in the public debate. The nature of his works experiences a fibrillation between imagination, conventional object, direct experience and mediated experience.
Today individuals experience a sort of “non-experience” in the sense that they spend most of their time surfing the “network”, producing a “new memory-without memory” or a “passive and a-critical assimilation” into the system. Luca Rossi knows this well. He constantly reminds us of the history of art and ideas, of our past, of what it means to be critical and active, struggling to preserve one’s own authenticity and originality in the great McDonald that is our contemporary world.
Many curators and artists, both in Italy and Europe, have been following Luca’s work with great excitement. By now Luca is considered the only critical voice that “stands out” in the current Italian landscape.
It is worrisome that Luca’s work has yet to be recognized by institutions and organizations, despite receiving the acknowledgement of the public and many curators and artists. This says a lot about what the value that the Italian system places on the “real artist”. The Italian contemporary landscape has been dragging itself down for more than 10 years, producing artists who “copy and paste”, endless repetitions of projects signed by the same names, and decreeing the end of contemporary art.
Luca Rossi is an independent author for which anyone can be “Luca Rossi”. In this way everyone is stimulated to a new sense of opportunity and responsibility. Luca Rossi started the blog Whitehouse as a platform for art criticism, information, and art-related projects in 2009. A better synthesis of the blog could be found on : www.lucarossilab.it. Major representatives of the art world have participated in the blog, contributing to its popularity. Luca Rossi has written in social networks and specialized magazines like “Flash Art”, Artribune.com, and Exibart.com with lucid criticism and originality.
Luca Rossi was defined “the most interesting personality” in Italy by Fabio Cavallucci, and “the new Vanessa Beecroft” by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio. In 2011 Alfredo Cramerotti (curator of “Manifesta” and Museum Director Mostyn, Wales) wrote: “To be honest, I’m not Roberta (a 2011 project by Luca Rossi) made me think more than dozens of other projects I have seen “live”.
Luca Rossi is an independent author for which anyone can be “Luca Rossi”. In this way everyone is stimulated to a new sense of opportunity and responsibility.
Luca Rossi started the blog Whitehouse as a platform for art criticism, information, and art-related projects in 2009. A better synthesis of the blog could be found on : www.lucarossilab.it. Major representatives of the art world have participated in the blog, contributing to its popularity. Luca Rossi has written in social networks and specialized magazines like “Flash Art”, Artribune.com, Exibart.com and Huffington Post with lucid criticism and originality.
Enrico Morsiani (1979) is the coordinator of the open collective Luca Rossi. In 2004 he graduated at Bologna University in International and Diplomatic Sciences. Between 2001 and 2009 he took part in solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Between 2005 and 2010 he attended “ImproTeatro” theater improvisation courses and today he works on the field of communication. In 2016 he opens the “Luca Rossi Lab” site that develops and coordinates all the projects realized in 10 years.
Luca Rossi was defined “the most interesting personality” in Italy by Fabio Cavallucci, and “the new Vanessa Beecroft” by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio. In 2011 Alfredo Cramerotti (curator of “Manifesta” and Museum Director Mostyn, Wales) wrote: “To be honest, I’m not Roberta (a 2011 project by Luca Rossi) made me think more than dozens of other projects I have seen “live”. In 2013 the art critic Angela Vettese stated that since he read Luca Rossi’s blog she stopped devoting himself to the practice of art but only to theory. In December 2015 a comparison between Mario Perniola and Luca Rossi was published in the magazine Alfabeta2. In 2017 an article from Artribune magazine summarizes Luca Rossi’s work starting in 2009.
Selected official and unofficial art projects:
Mart, Rovereto (2009); Whitney Biennial, New York (2010); Biennale di Venezia (2013, 2015, 2019, 2022); Abbazia di Sénanque (2013); Gamec di Bergamo (2014); Boros Collection, Berlino (2015); Serpentine Gallery, Londra (2015); Fondazione Prada, Milano (2016); Hotel Helvetia, Porretta Terme (2016); Quirinale, Roma (2017); SMACH 2017, Val Badia (2017); New Museum, New York, (2017, 2021); Tate Modern, Londra (2017, 2021); National Gallery of Scotland (2018); Centrale Fies/ Manifesta 12, 7800 Project (2018); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, #OccupySandretto (2018); ICA Milano (2019); Gagosian Gallery Rome (2019); Venezuelan Pavilion (2019); Prada Foundation Venice (2019); My Arbor My Art, MyArbor (2019); Palazzo Strozzi (2021,2022); Hangar Bicocca (2021); Bourse de Commerce (2021); Pompidou Museum (2022); MoMA Museum (2022); Documenta 15 (2022); Lisson gallery (2022), Galleria SIX (2023).