“I aim to redesign sensations of familiarity and displacement thanks to installation environments and objects I draw, inventing monsters, evoking ghosts”
AT: Where are you from and how/why did you start engaging with art?
ADP: I was born in Messina (Sicily) by the seaside and grew up in Como, on the lake. After I was born my family to the North: in the second half of the ’80s, it was common to be in the company of so many families who, like mine, had accepted the compromise of giving up the wild landscape of the port, in search of “civilized” life and guarantees of a future that would be as less apocalyptic as possible. I always wonder at what cost… . I don’t remember starting with art, but I always felt satisfaction and a feeling of emancipation from reality in drawing. September 11, 2001, was my first day of school at the Art Institute, the school where teaches Fausto Melotti and where the last generation of punk and gabber from “Brianza” studied. Back to September 11, I have always loved to link the collapse of the twin towers in New York and its impact on the imagery of catastrophe, with the beginning of my artistic training.
AT: When did it become serious?
ADP: Great question! When I first felt I had something to express and not repress.
AT: Are there any person who has been significant in your breakthrough as an artist?
ADP: My best friend Andrea Zucchi, now a very good architect, always made me feel comfortable with some of my skills, quirks, and obsessions.
HOBOBOLO, 2021, Cement, wood, aluminum, pigmented concrete, 3D printed bronze and PLA filament in metal, wood, steel, wax, kerosene and pigmented chalk, iron, acetate, perforated metal sheet, 98.4 x 236.2 x 47.3 in | Exhibition view at Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna (IT), 2021, curated by Tretigalaxie | Courtesy MAMbo Museo d’Arte Moderna Bologna
AT: What is your first approach to the work? How would you describe your practice?
ADP: My practice is a daily one.
AT: What do you aim to reach with your work?
ADP: Redesigning sensations of familiarity and displacement thanks to installation environments and objects I draw, inventing monsters, evoking ghosts.
AT: What are your favorite tools and materials for working?
ADP: For me, the love of materials is an end in itself if it doesn’t tie into the need for a form or design to be made, beyond how much you like one material over another. That’s what I’ve always thought now instead I just like them. The ones I have used the most are paper, aluminum, plastics, wax, cement, resins, plaster, and they are materials I use the most in the studio because I can understand and explore them independently in the studio without having to access more sophisticated production systems.
FELIX_Patience, 2018 | Lilac Paw Fade Study, 2021 – Stages of Adulthood | Sitterwerk |Ph Armature Globale
AT: What do you feel while you work? Do you usually think about the outcome beforehand?
ADP: Euphoric and surrendered.
AT: How do you understand that work finished?
ADP: When I feel like I’m running out of time.
AT: Are there any artists who influenced your works? Why?
ADP: I can answer by listing living and non-living artists with whom I like to keep company: Liliana Moro, Rochelle Feinstein, Paul Thek, Mike Kelley, Allen Frame, Chris Kraus and before that Nirvana, Placebo, Gigi d’Agostino, Daniel Clows and of course Alberto Savinio. I take this opportunity to greet my fellow artists Benni Bosetto, Costanza Candeloro and Riccardo Banfi. Ciao!
Tomb Writer (solve et coagula) + The Self Fulfilling Owen Prophecy, 2021 / Tomb Writer (solve et coagula): Engraved concrete bricks / The Self Fulfilling Owen Prophecy: Aluminum, pigmented concrete, 3D print bronze PLA filament | 9 x 275 x 216 in | Exhibition view at Palazzo Re Rebaudengo (Guarene) | Photo Domenico Conte
AT: What is your opinion about NFTs and their impact on the art world?
ADP: I don’t know, I’m stating the obvious offhand: it will make a little more money for the already rich artists and a lot more money for the specifically NFT ones; it will contribute to global warming; it will make “plastic and pictorial” arts vintage; it will realize the dream of art for all, and everyone will be unhappy because they will no longer be special. I don’t know, maybe I’ll try but I can’t wait any longer to become truly obsolescent 😀
AT: What do you find the most challenging or daunting thing about pursuing art? What is the most rewarding part of working as an artist?
ADP: Be as radical in your work as you are in your ethics. I don’t think I answered the question.
AT: What do you do besides art?
ADP: I watch a lot of cartoons.
AT: What are your goals and expectations for the future?
ADP: Make a journey, take a trip. See some of my work in movies and museums.
Vampirelli (serie) – Lo Spavento Vinse il Giorno (show), 2021, Colored pencil on paper, 24.8 x 31.8 x 1.5 in | Exhibition view at MEGA , Milan (IT), 2021 curated by Davide Giannella | Photo Lorenzo Capelli
Alessandro Di Pietro (b. 1987) is an Italian visual artist currently living and working in Milan, Italy. "My research is based on linguistic structures and cinematographic grammars, outlining methodologies that generate new narratives and production strategies through hybrid environments, inhabitants of monstrous plausible characters and non-objective technology".
Photo Portrait by Riccardo Banfi
