Turning what is not-familiar (un-heimlich) into something familiar (heimlich), cracking the certainties of everyday habits, transforming trivial items in icons. Riello's for 30 years has been working with his distinctive wittines in order to make clear that irony is the right (and very serious) approach to Contemporary Art. His irony knowns how to play with what is taken for granted, underscoring alternative points of view and new perspectives. His work may be naturally associated to Aldo Mondino's one and to younger artists like Erwin Wurm (Austrian) and Martin Kippenberger (German). An artistic attitude with a lot of intellectual transgression and refined taunt. His Ladies Weapons (real military guns decorated like elegant accessories for sophisticated ladies), Tarokki (an array of curious fakes luxury items), Italiani Brava Gente (an art videogame about Italian xenophobic attitude against Albanian people, made in 1997), Ashes to Ashes (the amazing glass urns cointaining the relics of his personal library) are all mirroring the artist relationship with Western Civilization and his paradoxes. Riello has also a defining sense of jest (mot d'esprit) and a particular taste for detournements, someway a kind of British "witticism" perhaps originated through the long time he is used to spend in London.
However Antonio Riello, although playing in the Conceptual Art context, all the time pays all carefully attention about the visual impact of what he makes. His Ex-Voto, military airplanes and rockets painted and decorated like the ceiling of Veneto churches, borrow from Tiepolo family frescos the typical atmosphere of Venetian skyes. Somebody could says his pious missiles seem fit enough to go directly to Heavens where God is in charge.
Riello most recent works keep going between real life and cultural Wonderland: recycling coconut fibers and playing with AlterModern icons he rescues the humble doormate from sloppiness and the banality of domestic routine. Here the traditional place for a coosy cat is occupied by a shit recalling directly the eponymous Piero Manzoni's "canned shit". There the usual "Welcome" is traded with a gorgeous palm, a hommage to the celebrated palms of Mario Schifano. The Terre Rare (Rare Earth Elements) is a group of 17 works that artistically deals with the Periodic table of Mendeleev. Another kind of un-heimlich, a turbulence in the "Natural Order of Things". Finding inside a doormate the language of Chemistry (and its parafernalia of symbols) is of course an aesthetical experience and tantamount a suggestion to merge-and-mix different languages and icons.
Antonio Riello is also a regular contributor about Contemporary Art for the online magazine DAGOSPIA www.dagospia.com
Riello does not think the real turning point of the new century was the infamous 11/9/2001, as itisusually considered. The real difference between now and the last century are mainly the economical and financial perspectives: Western democracies have already started (forced by grim circumstances) to dismantle their welfare systems. There is not money enough for that any more and this is alas clearly the trend of next future. It is a painful challenge of course. All over Europe social unrests are already rife and it is not hard to forecast a tense future full of uncomfortable changes with as a final results, social conflicts, ferocious riots and all but sort of civil wars.
Recording this situation, in a controversial and ambivalent way, means making contemporary/close-future trophies. Inspired even by the bear-skins traditionally used as carpets in mountain cottages. Police officers in full riot gear turned in comfortable piece of furniture: usable carpets. The lost social welfare finally revenged.
The idea is to produce this artworks using the different national police outfit of the most relevantEuropean countries. And also some kind of “imaginary future European Police”.
The first one has been the Greek riot-squad Police carpet. Now I am making some new ones related to Italian Carabinieri and Polizia di Stato. For UK the idea is to use the Metropolitan Police riot full gear.
Technically the artwork consists in an unique object (like a real carpet): the different parts are assembled and sewn together and on the lower side there is also a resistant anti-slipping rubber layer.
