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Nicolas MONTI
Architect, designer, artist, photographer, exhibition curator, writer
Founding partner of AMA – Albera Monti Architetti, he designs cover a wide range of projects in the home, office, hospitality and retail fields.
Amongst his corporate clients: Adidas, Allianz, Amazon, Banca Generali, BCG Boston Consulting, BNP Paribas, Bosch, Citibank, Generali, Google, Societé Générale.
Nicolas is also active in the design of furniture, lamps and home accessories for companies such as: Artemide, Fontana Arte, Poltrona Frau, Tecno, Unifor.
Among his books and exhibitions:
– Africa Then: Photographs 1840-1918 (Knopf, New York + Thames & Hudson, London)
– Italian Modern: A Design Heritage (Rizzoli International, New York)
– Luca Comerio fotografo e cineasta (Electa, Milano)
– Mediterranean Houses in Italy (GG, Barcelona)
– El Diseno Italiano (GG, Barcelona)
– Cuhna Moraes, Viagems em Angola, 1877-1897, Casa Museu Bissaya Barreto, Coimbra)
– Il gioco della seduzione (De Agostini, Milano)
Some of the institutions for which he has curated exhibitions: ICP International Center of Photography in New York, PAC – Padiglione di Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Palazzo delle Albere in Trento, Palazzo Rosso in Genoa, the Archaeological Museum of Bergamo.
He is a NEA and NEH grants’ recipient.
Il testo in italiano segue quello in inglese
LANDSCAPE ART
My involvement consists in choosing and cultivating a location, more specifically defining or redefining it by introducing marks/actions or adding fresh elements. The aim of this process is to question and reveal existing elements which go to making up a landscape, an environment or a room.
Sometimes the project has very precise, almost defensive boundaries; it closes in an area and assumes control of it, or even stake a claim to it. In other projects the edges are not so clearly defined and you can imagine that the work goes beyond the limits of our field of vision, towards areas and distances not immediately perceptible.
Object and sign can have characteristics that are durable (a work in reinforced cement), transient and/or easy to change (a farmer’s hay sheaves or a sand castle) or exceedingly ephemeral (a trail left in the wake of someone’s passage) through tall grass.
The only criteria which guides the arrangement of the objects within a landscape is my sense of the aesthetic; there is no other consideration, no conceptual nor philosophical theory, no mathematical nor geometrical mumbo-jumbo, no inspiration taken from the history of art.
The fun you get from planning and constructing is the decisive factor, as is the desire to enjoy the finished work.
My aim is to define fixed points. Even if it is possible to walk through some projects, in actuality, they are designed to be seen and enjoyed from one or more vantage points, purposefully chosen to impose my own personal view of the work.
Occasionally the element of time can be essential or totally irrelevant, plainly obvious or seemingly absent; the artwork can be made to last for centuries or destined to survive only in the memory of the spectator and on film. Naturally, the projects are prone to natural changes, often over a very short period of time, and can be strongly influenced by their environment, light, and the interference of other humans.
Location can also be extremely important given its particular or unique characteristics. Or it can have no importance at all and the artwork can be reproduced if not transplanted in many other situations.
The presence of these objects or projects is not a necessity. In its previous form, the spectator did not see the landscape as a void to be filled in. No doubt the artwork is never essential and it’s subjective to maintain that, in most cases, the artwork can enhance the place where it stands; however, it temporarily transforms the landscape allowing us to notice previously concealed and gives us a deeper insight to its characteristics, not only aesthetic, before and after the art project.
Since I realize that navigating the variety of subjects in chronological order might be disorienting: you may find a few selected ITINERARIES in the dedicated page of this web site.
Also have a look at: www.instagram.com/land.scapeart/