Gian Maria Tosatti's Italian Pavilion Transforms Biennale into Industrial Elegy

Gian Maria Tosatti's solo exhibition 'Storia della notte e destino delle comete' occupies the entire 2,000-square-meter Italian Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, curated by Eugenio Viola. The installation traces Italy's industrial decline through two interconnected spaces: a factory entrance with time clocks, an abandoned workshop with unused machinery, a custodian's apartment with petit-bourgeois decor, and a dark room filled with sewing machines. The second part, 'Destino delle comete,' features a pier emerging from darkness with faint lights, inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 article 'Il vuoto del potere in Italia.' Tosatti references figures like Adriano Olivetti, Raul Gardini, and Enrico Mattei, who believed in industry as a cultural force, alongside the magazine 'Civiltà delle macchine' founded by Leonardo Sinisgalli in 1953. The work critiques the environmental and social consequences of industrial failure, drawing on Ermanno Rea's book 'La dismissione' (2002). Viola describes the pavilion as a 'multidimensional screen.' This marks the first time the Italian Pavilion features a single artist, setting a precedent for future editions. Tosatti compares his role to the prophet Tiresias, acting as an archaeologist of the future.