Image as a presence

Talk and tour with Andrea Pinotti

The Public Program dedicated to Maurizio Cattelan continues on Thursday 20 January 2022 with a talk and tour inside the exhibition “Breath Ghosts Blind” led by Andrea Pinotti, professor of Aesthetics at the University of Milan and author of the essay “Images? A Deathly Serious Reality” for the exhibition’s catalogue.
Starting from the works of Maurizio Cattelan, Andrea Pinotti accompanies the public on a walk through the show giving an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between us and images and the possibilities offered by this encounter.
“When we encounter an image,” says Pinotti, “we find ourselves facing not the illustration of something else, but a presence that demands to be seen for what it is, in its own autonomous self, and not simply as a reference that depends on its referent. Maurizio Cattelan’s art forces us to experience the image as what we have before us. By moving between the extremes of the comic and the tragic, we are obliged to recognise a presence in our surroundings. It may be awkward, and sometimes disturbing, but we can never circumvent it.”
Andrea Pinotti teaches Aesthetics at the University of Milan, where he coordinates the ERC project AN-ICON, focused on the theory and history of immersive environments. He studies visual culture and theories of the image. His books include: Empatia: Storia di un’idea da Platone al postumano (Laterza, 2011); Cultura visuale: Immagini sguardi media dispositivi (with A. Somaini, Einaudi, 2016); Alla soglia dell’immagine: Da Narciso alla realta virtuale (Einaudi, 2021).