It happened in 1999. The Biennale exhibition in Venice – in that year Harald Szeemann was in charge “suppressed” the Italian Pavilion, who was conflated in the international exhibition, as part of the project of the Director, from the Corderie up to the Arsenale area. Italy, host country of the event, lost the possibility to compete for the prize to be assigned to the best pavilion. And, more importantly, Italy seemed to be definitively relegated to accepting the historical weight of a tradition that ties our country to a bright artistic past, but does not allow herself – a difficulty found in different fields – to become a driver of innovation. In 2005 the protest. An open letter – with many signatures, thanks to the collaboration of many cultural associations, administrators and art critics – was addressed to the President of the Foundation of the Biennale exhibition in Venice, David Croff. They wrote about the urgency of a national presence and the creation of a Commissioner to take charge of the Italy Pavilion.

In the middle of all this we saw an apparently contrarian request by Pino Boresta. A provocative, direct and sincere artist, he wrote in that year “of a contemporary italietta”, a mediocre one, where the art system doesn’t have the courage to reward who is really deserving. He asked, moreover, not to sign that appeal and, instead, to sign an appeal extolling his own production, more qualified to compete in the same Biennale exhibition. The last Biennale has shown nevertheless that the hopes of Pino Boresta have been denied, in spite of an Italian Pavilion that, debatable as it is, has been returned to its rightful place. But Boresta persists.

On Saturday 1st December 2007 the artist inaugurated his second attempt: “Sign Boresta” is a campaign of signatures for his participation in the next Biennale exhibition. This time he gives priority to the real Piazza over the electronic one. He shows an ancient predilection for the traditional agorà, starting with those interventions on the urban texture that represent the strongest expression of his artistic bent. Stickers with a grimace or small Urban Rectified Documents are the two most meaningful examples of his irreverence. Boresta seems to want to dust off the legacy of a Marcel Broodthaers, when he chooses to make the art a vector of consensus, when the Belgian artist used it as a vehicle of cultural approval, bypassing the official institutions or rather, emulating them in mock imitation.

The Boresta project reveals itself as a desecrating reading on the last trends of doing politics, from the local participation to an interaction vis-à-vis the signatories of the petition. It is to be presumed, as far as the latter are concerned, that they have little to do with the matter of “inclusion” in the system of contemporary art.

A second part of his work has been shown in the premises of the association: a Net art project called “No-Logo C.U.S.” has been presented: the really personal brand has been made very visible. Pino Boresta ties the visual account of one of his interventions “Look for a Face and it Use it” (L.F.U.) to some passages from the “No Logo” book by Naomi Klein, the “bible of the anti globalization movement”. From the citizen that signs his protest to the ‘netizen’ who visits the site in which the No-Logo C.U.S. project will continue to exist, Boresta doesn’t leave out anybody.

Chiara Li Volti

Congratulation of your nomination as the Curator for the upcoming Venice Biennale . My name is waleed Abdulkhalek, Curator and Art consultant from Egypt, also Founder and Director of Almasar Gallery | Contemporary Art .

i remain as a Curators and a gallerist in Egypt having high hopes and aims to present my Contemporary Artists for the Biennale or the Arsinale , so i would pleasulrly like to ask you to find a minute to browse my gallery’s website at your convinience to have a closer idea about Modern and Contemporary Artists from Egypt.
Kindly browse Almasar gallery at : http://www.almasargallery.com .

Many thanks for your time, i remain.

Sincerely yours

Waleed Abdulkhalek
Tel: +2012 216 1115