Rossella Biscotti

Rossella Biscotti(born 1978) is an artist whose practice cuts across sculpture, performance, sound works, and filmmaking.
She explores and reconstructs social and political moments from recent times through the subjectivity and experiences of individuals often in opposition to violent institutionalised systems. Stemming from extended research processes, conceptual excavations, personal encounters, interdisciplinary collaborations, and the subtle interrogation of sites and stories, her works encapsulate meticulous stratifications of materials and meanings.
She has taken part in major international exhibitions as After Rain, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Diriyah-Riyadh (SA) curated by Ute Meta Bauer; Dhaka Art Summit (2020), Contour Biennale (2017), Sonsbeek 23th (2016), 55th Venice Biennale and 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013), dOCUMENTA 13 and Manifesta 9 (2012). Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Kunstinstituut Melly (2019), Kunsthaus Baselland and daadgalerie (2018), V–A–C Foundation at the Gulag History Museum in Moscow (2016), Museion Bolzano (2015), Wiels, Sculpture Center New York, and Secession (2013). Biscotti has received several international awards.
She graduated from theAccademia di Belle Artiin Naples in 2002, she attended theRijksakademievan Beeldende Kunsten inAmsterdamin 2010–2011. Back in 2000 she was selected for the Advanced Course in Visual Art at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como. The visiting professor wasIlya Kabakov.
She focuses on social and political events which sometimes have happened in the distant past and become the starting point for the investigation of individual or collective identity and memory.
Her methodology is based on a meticulous preliminary research into archival materials such as found documents, audio recordings or newspapers documenting stories and events which have been forgotten by history. She uses archive materials to underline the loss of information, the ambiguity of reconstructions and their possible uses as well.Biscotti is interested in the potentiality of new narrations when they start circulating again through her artworks.
WithLe Teste in Oggetto(The Heads in Question, 2009)the artist analyzes the relations between art and power raising questions about the status of contemporary artists and their degree of intellectual and conceptual autonomy. The sculpture consists of the heads of KingVictor Emmanuel III of ItalyandBenito Mussolini, which were found by the artist in the storerooms of the Palazzo degli Uffici in theEURdistrict in Rome. The sculptures were created for theEsposizione universale (1942)which never took place because of Italy's involvement in World War II. Biscotti decided to appropriate them and exposed them to the public for the first time. Doing so, the artist radically reversed their original meaning: rather than celebratory monuments, they became the focus of reflection and discussion.
In her workIl Processo(The Trial, 2010–12)she focuses on theApril 7th trial(1983–84), against the members ofAutonomia Operaia. The trial was held in the Aula Bunker in Rome, a high-security courthouse, which hosted the most important trials of the period known as Anni di Piombo (Years of Lead). She created an installation composed by concrete sculptures made from casts of the architectural features of the courtroom, taken before their demolition. The installation is accompanied by a six-hour audio edited recording of the April 7 trial.Defendants in the court case included the philosophersAntonio NegriandPaolo Virno, and other intellectuals accused of being ideologically and morally responsible for Italian terrorism developed in the late 1970s.Il Processowon the MAXXI prize in 2010, promoted byMAXXI– Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo in Rome.
The human condition and circumstances in detention are the focus ofI dreamt that you changed into a cat...gatto...ha ha ha(2013).Rossella Biscotti developed her research in the women's prison onGiudeccaisland at theVenetian lagoon. This prison is not like a traditional one where inmates are locked and unproductive; on the contrary, the prisoners spend their time working outside the prison. As all prison cells are open, Biscotti was given the opportunity to meet every prisoner by creating a dream workshop, called ‘oneiric laboratory’. Using the workshop as a platform to communicate with the prisoners, Biscotti analyzed the institution and the way the inmates figure in it. She processed her research in a sculpture made of compost, which was the result of work that has been done by inmates in the kitchen, cleaning, the growing of vegetables and consumption. The work was presented during the 55thVenice Biennalein 2013.
Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Italy and abroad, in major museums and galleries.
In 2022 she won the Premio Nazionale Arti Visive Gallarate, MAGA, Gallarate. She was artist in residence at L’art Rue, Tunis in 2022, at NTU CCA, Singapore in 2020 and at DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, Berlin in 2018. She won the ACACIA prize for Contemporary Art, Museo del Novecento, Milano (IT) in 2017 and the 16esima Quadriennale di Roma prize, Rome (IT) in 2016. In 2013 she was recipient of the Mies van der Rohe Stipend. In 2010 she won the Premio Michelangeloat Post Monument, XIV International Sculpture Biennale of Carrara (IT), and the Premio Italia Arte Contemporanea 2010.In 2009 she won the Premio Fondazione Ettore Fico, Artissima Art Fair, Turin (IT), the 2nd PrizePrix de Rome, Amsterdam (NL) and the Emerging Talents Award,Strozzina Foundation, Florence (IT). In 2008 she was recipient of 1st Prize Golden Cow at Gstaadfilm Festival, Gstaad (CH). In 2007 she was awarded with the 1st Prize The City of Geneva Grand Prize at the 12th Biennial of Moving Images, at the Centre pour l’image contemporaine, Geneva (CH). In 2006 she won the Premio NYpromoted by Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Italian Academy and the Columbia University in New York (US).