Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam

For the Open Studios at the Rijksakademie, Giorgio Andreotta Calò turned his studio twice into a site specific installation. In 2009 the studio was filled with autumn leaves. It is a subtle work in which the spectator’s perception of the space is completely overturned. A large glass pane separates the viewer from an artificial landscape, creating a kind of filter: the viewer has the feeling of observing something from the outside and, at the same time, also having a kind of control over it. The studio roof beyond the glass has been removed in order to fake an open space and to impart a feeling of closeness to nature and a sense of gravity in relation to the leaves. The installation can be seen as a kind of painting, a large still life that is just apparently still, lying frozen behind the large glass panel. If we look more closely, we can see that the whole surface covered with leaves is breathing, slowly and so naturally to dispel all suspicions that some kind of mechanism is driving it from beneath.