Italy 2022

Title: Storia della notte e destino delle comete
Commissioner: Onofrio Cutaia, Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, Ministero della Cultura
Curator: Eugenio Viola
Exhibitor: Gian Maria Tosatti

For the 59th Venice Biennale, Italy is represented by the artist Gian Maria Tosatti. The pavilion, entitled “History of Night and Destiny of Comets” is conceived as a vast environmental site-specific installation that aims to propose an impressive vision of the current state of humanity and its future prospects.

Due to Tosatti‘s theatrical training, the exhibition articulates the narrative into a prologue and two acts: “History of Night” and “Destiny of Comets“.

The first space, that coincides with the first act “History of Night” offers a symbolic journey into the “Bel Paese”, or rather through the symbolic parable of the rise and fall of the Italian industrial dream. A sequence of disturbing scenarios foresees the final vision, overturning the imagination in a visionary epiphany.

The final vision is the “Destiny of Comets“, which reminds us that nature has not forgiven man.

And finally, a powerful and unsettling epilogue emerges, through the sign of a possible peace. Indeed, the exhibition ends with a hopeful message about the destiny of humanity, which like a comet, has crossed the universe in a tremendous luminous trail.