Giovanni Ambrosio biography and work
Visual artist. Photographer. Born in Naples, 1978. Based in Paris/Napoli.
Bio
Definitely rooted in literature and words, but equally shaped by research, initiated in Naples (L’orientale) and carried on in Paris (Paris X), on the relationship between fine arts and Belgian underground cinema.
I was initiated into photography from a perspective marked by documentary narrative (under Sergio De Benedetti’s Nigma Fotografi school) and later in Paris (Paris VIII) I went into contemporary art and photography establishing then my works at the crossroads of several media. Still, I can resort to photography as a tool for investigating social phenomena as much as for researching in the performative and theatrical fields. I have been involved in Mucem Marseille Football & Identities research program (2015-2017) and with historian and researcher Sébastien Louis I started Ultras Youth, an investigative work focusing on Ultras football supporters, in particular in Arabic-speaking countries in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring protests. Long term collaborator of theatre groups, I am engaged in a performative and documentary practice of stage photography, working on and off stage. In 2013 I took part to Altofragile, device run by theatre group Teatringestazione.
From 2013 onward, with dramaturg Loretta Mesiti, we have been organising a joint Working Table, literally a common working desk on which we display our personal collections of visual and written matters. We operate in this common space aiming to analyse elements emerging from the praxis through the lens offered by theoretical approaches, to elaborate them into discourses and to create opportunities to share them publicly with other artists and non-artists. This process was born within Altofest – a festival of performing arts in domestic spaces in Naples (Italy) – was formalised with the project (e)labOratorio (Bodman, Germany 2015) – and takes currently the shape of the Table of Matters within the project ALTEReurope. Additionally, I am in dialogue with research group hosted by the journal K. Revue trans-européenne de philosophie et arts.
Exploring printmaking, I have been a resident at Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium in 2021 and student, in 2022, at the Laboratorio Avella hosted by Fondazione Morra. On the other hand I am engaged in a digital book making process. Eventually, I run a digital publishing house called Arroz con Pollo. Bits con Papel and a dreamy digital art gallery, Arroz con pollo II.
My commissioned works and collaborative projects with other artists can also, and sometimes simultaneously, lead me to work as art director, photographer, writer and graphic designer.
My works are in the collections of Mucem in Marseille, Mufoco in Milan, in the Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, in the Ecole Alain Ducasse Paris Campus.
Works
My body of works is based on photography, minimalist painting, gesture, papers, printmaking, (screenprinting, rizography, etching), objects, writing, found writing footage, video, walking, performance writing, digital composition, field recording and music. Photography can step in to gather all those elements into sedimented mixed media. Photography is cheaper than neon and can always be fully reshaped.
I intend my whole works as a score and I proceed on a constant accumulation, an often endless collecting of materials that I could constantly use and reuse, rearrange, embody and reincarnate. That leads me to mainly work on site specific installations. Curatorial practice is part of my process: I rewrite my archive, invite other artists to process my topics, write curatorial projects.
My aim is to work out of joints, outside the limits of my own discipline and consequently to exceed in the boundaries of other disciplines. The shift from one genre to another is a salient aspect of my photographic practice: a series of still lives may have a documentary intention. A same topic can be explored in different series in different genres.
I work in educational and academic environment, conceiving and running workshops, pedagogical projects, masterclasses.
Main themes issuing from my works: erasing, archive, archaeology, ability/disability of images to describe and to tell, migration of shapes and materials, journals writing, relationship between art and society, attempts to tell about complex living zones.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
Ius soli Campania Felix delenda est. Indian Photographic Festival (2023-2024)
Soils/Sounds, Vico II Corte San Michele, Ottaviano, Italy (2023)
Ius soli and Opus Incertum installed in Oreste will be back, Museo Madre, Naples (2022)
Prophecies and pronouncements in Sibyl Sessions, Parco Archeologico di Cuma, Italy (2022)
Dialoghi, Vico II Corte San Michele, Ottaviano, Italy (2022)
Prolegomena per un museo archeologico della zona rossa, O’ Vascio Room Gallery,(2020)
We need no education, Institut Français d’Algérie, Algiers (2020)
How do I archive a performance which is not mine, Teatro Bellini, Naples (2020)
We need no education, Les Rotondes, Luxembourg (2018)
A dispersed anthology of J’ai brûlé dans tes yeux. Je brûle, Museo Madre, Naples (2017)
(re)Writing (a) List, Altofest, Naples (2014)
Who am i represented by? Academy of Human Potential, Lecce, Italy (2014)
Ritratti Residenti / Dislocati / Sparsi / Non Rilegati / Non Relegati, Altofest, Naples (2013)
Cos’è uno spazio pubblico?, Independents, Art Verona art fair (2013)
Garder les gens altérer la forme, Espce Icare, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, (2013)
Global Portrait Factory, Altofest, Naples, (2012)
Garder les gens altérer la forme, Médiathèque Marguerite Duras, Paris (2010)
Garder les gens altérer la forme, WIPMaison de La Villette, Paris, (2010)
Collective exhibitions
ULTRA Fotboll och politik vid Medelhavet Medelhavsmuseet, Goteborg (2023-2024)
Beyond the game, BI-BOX Art Space, Biella Italy (2022)
The Art Of The Football Scarf, Oof Gallery, London (2022)
Universo Giovane, Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Milan (2022)
ULTRA Fotboll och politik vid Medelhavet Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm (2021-2023)
Who doesn’t jump up! Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Milan (2021)
Seeds by Seeeds, Ecole Alain Ducasse, Paris (2021)
La révolution du ballon rond, Institut du monde Arabe, Paris (2019)
Future of Travel, Corridor Project Space Amsterdam (2018)
Première Vu’, Galerie ‘Vu, Paris (2018)
Nous sommes foot Mucem, Marseille (2017)
Instabul Photobook Festival (2017)
Landskrona Fotosalon, Landskrona, Sweden (2016)
Coding/Decoding the Borders, Espace Architecture Flagey-ULB, Brussels (2016)
New Exposure competition, Open House Gallery, New York (2013)
Contact, Projects & Network
Galleries
Seeeds Gallery, Paris