Pietro Gaglianò

Memento Pietro Gaglianò

Memento is a reflection on the criticality of the collective memory that is shaped in public space as a sign of hegemonic control or of an act of resistance. From the apparatus of power to the expressions of the counter-monument, to urban planning, and to the tentacular control of the post-Fordist era, the obsession with the visible reveals the horizon of confrontation between the subversive capacity of art and critical thought and the colonization of the imagination in the society of the spectacle. Memento begins with the case of the never-completed monument to Costanzo Ciano in Livorno, touching on the aesthetic of European totalitarianisms, and analyzing several examples of international art from the past thirty years, concluding with a focused look at recent experimentation by Italian artists on the subject of power, its forms, its narratives, and its alternatives, through exchange and participation. The text also enters into an in-depth analysis of the connection between the corruption of language and conformism. __ Pietro Gaglianò lives in Florence. He has proceeded from his degree in architecture to study the relationship between the aesthetics of power and individual freedoms, regarding the urban and social contexts as the location of contemporary languages (with a particular focus on the theoretical systems of performance art). He curates projects in Italy and abroad and experiments with hybrid structures which weave pedagogical experiences into traditional exhibition formats.