Angelo Pretolani

Angelo Pretolani was born in Genoa in 1953.
At twenty years old, even though he has never attended a live performance, he gives his first one, called “Minotaur”. The artist walks about the city, passing under the scaffoldings of construction sites.
The metaphor is easily understandable: the city is becoming a labyrinth in which each and every individual lives a strong sense of disorientation and isolation.
He then stages a series of performances titled “Apparitions”, taking inspiration from his own name “Angelo”; they are brief interventions in public spaces which underline the creative and ephemeral presence of the performer.
Apart from Performance Art, he often dedicates himself to painting or taking photographs, tending to give prominence to the blue color, the color of spirituality.
His art encompasses poetry, performance, theater, video and painting which artfully weave together.
Angelo Pretolani, from 2018, has been the protagonist of an operation on Facebook.
On his Facebook profile, with a constancy that recalls the art making of such artists as Roman Opalka and On Kawara, he describes, in just some minutes, the performance he himself conducts in private.
He often utilizes certain objects, among which are laurel leaves, clearly associated to the world of poetry.
Each performance is often accompanied with an artwork on paper, realized with ballpoint pen ink diluted with alcohol.
The entire operation is titled “Under cobblestones there exists the beach”, which refers to a famous 1968 motto.