Gino De Dominicis

This volume casts new light on the life and career of the eccentric Italian artist, philosopher and architect Gino De Dominicis (1947–98), a controversial figure in postwar Italy. The artist’s belief that artworks may provide a valuable model for achieving the immortality of the body inspired his entire life and oeuvre, which spanned many mediums from painting to drawing to large-scale sculpture and installation. A culmination of Gabriele Guercio’s extensive research, the book features a selection of text, archival materials and images. It is the first English reader to include not only the reflections of De Dominicis but also an impressive collection of essays and interviews penned by a wide range of artists, art historians, critics and curators, including Marina Abramovic, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Achille Bonito Oliva, Norman Bryson, Germano Celant, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Shiff and Italo Tomassoni.

A complex and elusive artist, Gino De Dominicis is considered one of the key figures in contemporary Italian art and a reference point for both the artists of his time and younger generations. Gino De Dominicis' life has always been shrouded in mystery. He chose to stay outside the sphere of media attention and due to this intransigent position no catalogs or books on his works were published. The work entitled “Seconda soluzione di immortalità. L'universo è immobile“, presented at the Venice Art Biennale in 1972, was remembered however: Gino de Dominicis faced charges for having exhibited a young man with Down's Syndrome as an art object. The absolute originality of much of his intuition has anticipated artistic experiences that came to fruit in the 21st century. The catalog, edited by Italo Tomassoni, brings together more than 700 artworks, each one accompanied by a dossier which, alongside the usual technical, chronological and bibliographic data, provides information regarding the context and circumstances that led to the work's creation.The volume also includes a section devoted to the artist's writings, a critical anthology and a catalogue raisonné of his works. The book concludes with appendices reproducing rare and unpublished documents dealing with the artist's life, a complete list of his solo exhibitions, his participation in group shows and an extensive bibliography.

Together with Harald Szeemann, Italo Tomassoni curated the first retrospective devoted to Gino De Dominicis at the 48th Venice Art Biennale in 1999. In December 1998 he founded the Associazione Gino De Dominicis. He is among the founders of the Centro Italiano Arte Contemporanea di Foligno, of which he is also the Artistic Director. He held the chair of Art History at the Academy in Perugia until 2001, and from 2002 to 2008 he taught Copyright in contemporary Artwork at Rome's Sapienza University.