Gian Maria Tosatti's Italian Pavilion at 2022 Venice Biennale Explores Complexity and Sustainability

Gian Maria Tosatti presented the Italian Pavilion for the 2022 Venice Biennale, titled "Storia della notte e destino delle comete," on February 14, 2022. Onofrio Cutaia, Director General for Contemporary Creativity at the Italian Ministry of Culture, described the work as a total, site-specific, and immersive artwork. Tosatti's practice aligns with Complexity Theory, which he sees as a framework for addressing sustainability challenges. The article argues that sustainability requires a paradigm shift away from modern and postmodern thinking toward a systemic, interconnected worldview. It defines a "complex artwork" as an environment that emerges from interactions among its elements, analogous to a forest. Artists like Tomás Saraceno, Pierre Huyghe, Anne Imhof, Roberto Cuoghi, and Olafur Eliasson are cited as exemplars. Huyghe's "After ALife Ahead" (Skulptur Projekte Münster, 2017) is described as a "time-based bio-technical system." Imhof's "Faust" (Venice Biennale, 2017) used improvisation to create complex patterns. Cuoghi's "Imitazione di Cristo" (Italian Pavilion, 2017) involved decomposing casts. Eliasson's "Life" (Fondation Beyeler, 2021) integrated the surrounding ecosystem by removing glass walls. The article concludes that complex art offers a new language to address contemporary issues like biodiversity, spirituality, and the nature-technology relationship.