++++ Gianni Motti lives in Berlin and Geneva, he leads an exemplary life.

++++ Gianni Motti is neither a Situationist nor an activist. His position is never against, but always to one side . to one side of cultural, natural or political phenomena; to the side of the events and the torpor and energy bursts of the age. Motti does not invent. He gives us an eclipse, a presidential campaign, a puff of smoke, his own funeral, the resignation of a despot, uncanny moments, public speech, acts of sympathy, of substitution, of empathy and telepathy . in a word, a succession of narratives and moments that are about reality, whether spectacular or mediocre, disturbing or banal. Healing, diverging, Motti’s work does not use ‘objects’ but instead takes a series of accidents, reparations and intrusions that restore to those who witness them their insolence and the autonomy of their existence and thoughts. For Manifesta 4, his project is to re-create the cell of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurd leader, who for the last three years has been in prison on the island of Imrali, in the Marmara Sea. This is a way of restoring to this future Nobel Peace Prize winner a bit of his landscape, a bit of his humanity. (Stephanie Moisdon Trembley)

Gianni Motti ’s Assistants,2001,New York.Documentation. Courtesy: Galerie Jousse Enterprise, Paris