Luigi Coppola

coppolalu@gmail.com
http://www.luigicoppola.blogspot.com

profile

2000   Ph.D Safety and Risk Analysis, Politecnico Torino, Italy
1997   BA in Environmental Engeneering, Politecnico Torino, Italy

Selected Exhibitions & Performance2010   Neutral Ecological Body, Performance in Artisterium International Contemporary Art

         Exhibition and Art Events, Tbilisi, Georgia
2009   Breathe in, Breathe out / Ghost & I,(together with Yingmei Duan)

         1st Biennale Democrazia Torino ITA, Fabbrica Europa, Firenze, Italy
2008-2009   Untiled Portrait Project, (together with Yuko Kaseki, Isak Immanuel), Museo MADRE,

                 Napoli, Italy
                 Teatro Affratellamento, Firenze, Italy; Farmlab Social Sculpture, Los Angeles, USA
                 New Lanton Arts Gallery, San Francisco, USA
                 Dock 11, Berlin, Germany; Old winery Hweilan, Guling Theatre of Taipei,

                 Taipei Artists Village, Taipei, Taiwan
2008   Acts of Ordinary Democratic Exercise, Workshop / Performance,

         Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy
         Don’t go too far, Performance Hweilan Cultural Centre, Hualien, Taiwan

Professional Activities2008-2009   Members of knowledge circle Arts in society, Fontys School of Art, Tilburg,

                 Netherland
2006-2008   Collaborator of Michelangelo Pistoletto and Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto,

                 Biella, Italy

Curatorial Projects2009   Year One - Third Paradise, by M. Pistoletto, Artissima Teatro, Torino, Italy
          Democratic Acts, Lungomare Bolzano; Biennale Democrazia Torino,

          Fabbrica Europa Firenze, Italy

AS WE WANT YOU
Luigi Coppola&Yingmei Duan
Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2009
Photo:Rob Gieling

Don’t Go Too Far
Hualien, Taiwan, 2007
Photo:Chang shu-man

In-Trattenimento
2006

Concentrating on the relational dynamics that order the social sphere, the artist addresses in the dialectic between individual and collectivity the common factor between such two lines of research, ultimately bringing to front a notion of art practice as mise en forme of political, economic, social issues and claims. Urged by the transformation to which the political sphere is undergoing, and never separating more curatorial interventions from his body of works, Coppola has been recently working on a series of actions and events that directly address democracy in current times. Stemming of a series of performances, Atti Democratici – an evolving curatorial framework that includes symposia, performances, public interventions, discussions and screenings – best represents the artist’s engage in a notion of art as place of encounter, inclusion, debate and confrontation with others. In such respect his most recent series works, Neutral Ecological Body, while stressing his interest in Joseph Beuys also addresses art as an exercise in democracy.
The Neutral Ecological Body is the body of the artist himself who vis-à-vis the production of surplus that the world is facing due to global economy. The artist’s body retains from action in the attempt to balance consumerism, and serves as physical location of exchange of forces.
Neutrality is not – it must be stressed – to retain from taking a (political) position, on the contrary it is a modus operandi through which on one hand the artist avoids contributing to adding more surplus, on the other hand, he functions as distribution center of already produced energy that would otherwise be dispersed. The nature of such actions is – as it is common to Coppola’s approach – context specific and is formalised as a reaction to a given situation in a specific place. Never predetermined or predictable before they take place, these works are performances by subtractions, that act, as visual art does, as screens that transform into an image, the real.

                                                                       — Cecilia Canziani, Curator of Nomas Foundation, Rome