Gianni Motti

Exhibition and art project views Gianni Motti, THINK TANK
La Criée contemporary art centre & public spaces in the city of Rennes, 2008
© Gianni Motti
Courtesy La Criée contemporary art center
Photo credit: Benoît Mauras

Think Tank was curated by Larys Frogier in the framework the 2008 contemporary art Bienniale of Rennes directed by Raphaële Jeune.

Gianni Motti's Think Tank is at once minimal and radical: 18,000 open joint cobblestones set side by side cover the entire exhibition space at La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art. On that occasion, the exhibition space was open 24 hours a day for two weeks. During these two weeks Motti called on the art centre team to reconsider their working conditions in the light of this reversal of the "minimum service" notion.

Think Tank laid bare the unstable underpinning of a vacant public space . In any society, whether democratic or dictatorial, large public empty space is never about "nothingness". On the contrary, it has the specific function of allowing the celebration of different forms of narrative and demonstration of power: political declamations, military parades, displays of opposition, personal exchanges, etc. Empty public space is also the iconic venue for the exertion of physical control over people.

The work by Motti, however, goes beyond this representation of a public space – in this case La Criée – which certain members of the public felt entitled to appropriate by covering it with slogans and spattering it with paint. Indeed, the fundamental intention of Think Tank is to materialise, and maintain in a state of extreme visual tension, a space paradoxically empty of images and discourse and, instead, "saturated" with cobblestones. This visual tension is also a semantic one, homing in intellectual abdication and the hijacking of thinking in our democratic societies. Whence the title Think Tank, drawn from the vocabulary of business and politics and designating groups of experts working together to help a political party or multinational company modify people's opinions or consumption habits. A think tank can also be used to fabricate an idea which, strategically put to the public, will distract attention from some dangerous social issue. Today these bodies often take the form of private foundations with a sufficiently decisive influence on some political figure to affect actual programmes and public reactions.

The second work involves the activation of a Gianni Motti Assistant who will walk the streets of Rennes wearing a yellow T-shirt inscribed with the words “Gianni Motti Assistant” in black. Associated with this figure are a number of photographs, of which one will circulate widely via the post, drops, and the Internet. The photograph shows an actual encounter between the “Gianni Motti Assistant” and the “Municipal Police”. The appearance of various such Assistants all over the world activates the artist’s presence without actually revealing their true mission to act as signs, and to interact according to the context and the Assistant’s degree of commitment within the environment concerned.