Lesson #9, “How Italian Are You Really?” by Riccardo Paratore presents the artist research on Italian heritage in the Americas and northern Europe. Starting with an economic exodus of Southern Italians to the Americas in the 1860s, bookended by postwar migrations to northern Europe, the programme explores a variety of forms in which the Italian identity at large has been constructed through its adaptation of new environments and landscapes.
Riccardo Paratore, who is of Sicilian descent born and raised in Germany, will take charge of Fiorucci Art Trust’s website and Instagram account. Through these channels, original content by the artist as well as his colleagues are distributed for the duration of ten days, until January 30th — via Argentina, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. With Rosa Aiello, Victoria Colmegna, Peter Fischli and Tomás Nervi. Discover the project in its entirety at the following link.
About the Artist
In his work, Riccardo Paratore deals with the art of display and art as a commodity and cultural signifier vis à vis identity-construction. Paratore’s exhibitions result from his intensive research into the field of design and its history, which he conflates with social climate and even personal history. By so doing, the artist aims to unsettle the distinction between the private and the public, objecthood and personhood. The artist posits that if self-design has become an integral part of socio-economic value production, then the biographical should be deployed as a point of departure. Such categories as kitsch, sentimentality, taste, and style become imperative in Paratore’s pursuit of the social subject at the heart of class mobility.
