Becoming Geological: A Descent into Matter

A lecture by Riccardo Venturi

Starting from the “CITTÀDIMILANO” exhibition and from the work of Giorgio Andreotta Calò, whose Produttivo involved placing over 1,500 linear metres of core samples in the exhibition space, Riccardo Venturi, an art critic and historian, reflects on the contemporary significance of geology. Today, in the era of the Anthropocene, geology has gone from an earth science to an essential area of knowledge that artists choose to contend with. In particular, the lecture focuses on some intersections between geology and the living world, which constitute the notion of “geological life”.

Riccardo Venturi is Pensionnaire in history and theory of the arts at Académie de France – Villa Medici, Rome (2018-2019) and already post-doctoral scholar at Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) in Paris (2012-2016). He has published Mark Rothko. Lo Spazio e la sua disciplina (Electa, Milan 2007), Black paintings. Eclissi sul modernismo (Electa, Milan 2008), Passione dell’indifferenza. Francesco Lo Savio (Humboldt Books, Milan 2018), and he recently co-curated the retrospective on Francesco Lo Savio at the MART in Rovereto. He contributes regularly to ‘Artforum’, ‘Alias – Il Manifesto’ and to doppiozero.com.