Concept
Vittorio Santoro (born 3 September 1962) is an Italian/Swiss visual artist living in Paris and Zurich. He is primarily known for his multimedia approach including installations, audio works, sculptures, works on paper, real-time activities and his artist books. Essentially an autodidact, Santoro has attended the International Center of Photography (NYC) and the programs at Watermill Art Center with Robert Wilson (Long Island, NY). Santoro initially developed a literary practice in Italian (his parents emigrated from Sicily, Italy, to Switzerland before his birth.) In 1985, he published the collection of poems entitled La Voce e le Mani, Progetto per una poesia inumana (Lalli Editore, Poggibonsi). His work with the medium of language continues to this day and was even reinforced after meeting with artist Jenny Holzer in the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s, he increasingly turned to photography as a means of expression. In close collaboration with the American writer Paul Bowles, he publishes The Time of Friendship / Ten Photographs (Memory/Cage Editions, Zurich, 1995). He then gradually expanded the spectrum of media towards sculpture, installation and video/film. Images, space, signs, sounds and language are intertwined in works such as F. Dostoyevsky: C. and P., Page 67 (Penguin Popular Classics), divided vertically, 2007/2011, Untitled (Mask), 2007, Monologism As Poetry, 2009, Reciprocal Scrutiny (bordereau), 2009, Gagarin, I-II, 2012, Good-bye Darkness, IV, 2010, and In/Voluntary Movement Diagram (Josef K.), 2014. His works are based in everyday observations, but go beyond them to show latent historical, aesthetic, sociopolitical, or even metaphysical realities. His characteristically intricate visual sensibility conceals a tension between the referential possibilities of objects and the choreographic nature of their placement in context. For each work Santoro chooses specific ways to manipulate conventions to desired effects believing that creativity is an ongoing process of continual change and reaction.
