Seal it in books
Artist books mark specific chapters in Lotti Astolfi’s artistic practice.
These works are complementary parts of exhibitions projects.
Eclisse, artist booklet, 10 x 15 cm, exhibition edition of 40 copies, 2023
Eclisse, artist booklet, 2023
Eclisse, artist booklet, 2023
Poem excerpt
The exhibition Suspended Times developed from the poem Eclisse (2023). The text acts as a narrative voice looking at the past and elaborating on the human experience and its existential struggle.
This concept booklet titled after the poem, includes the text, pictures present on the installation Natura Morta con Eclisse and debris of marble and granite which are fragments of the stones included in the installation. The booklet has been printed in an edition of 40 copies, one for each year of the artist life to the exhibition date.
You here Not Theother, concrete, acrylic paint on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, 2019
Vibrational Instability, exhibition edition of 100 copies, 20 pages, 14 x 16 cm, 2019
The poem Vibrational Instability, written by the artist in 2018, elaborates on detachment, urgency and hopelessness. The text has been the starting point for the exhibition of the same name consisting of 20 paintings based on raw concrete, split stones and sound. The project unfolds as a puzzle of visual elements where raw materials, abstract visions and unsettling messages engraved on concrete come together, bound by a droning sonic element.
Link to Vibrational Instability exhibition
Chorus
Subwoofer sound installation
3.50 min played at intervals, 2019
Inspired by the concept of Chorus in the Ancient Greek theatre, Chorus is a sonic element composed by layers of recordings of “silent” environments, processed through a synthesiser and performed through a subwoofer, to create a dark, droning, yet subtle physical presence. Chorus appears and disappears at irregular intervals.
>> Please listen through headphones or subwoofer only
Karussell gen Osten, detail - The Departure
Karussell gen Osten, detail - Somersaults and Celebrations
Karussell gen Osten, detail - The Faun with the Arch and One of the Four Winds
Karussell gen Osten, detail - The Grand Fluttering Magisterium
Karussell gen Osten, detail - It's Good Meat
Karussell gen Osten, detail - The Papessa
Karussell gen Osten, collage and oil painting, 50 x 77 cm, 2008
Karussell gen Osten and Music Ornamented With Trophies, artist book and music CD, 2009
Karussell gen Osten and Music Ornamented with Trophies
Painting, music score, artist book and poem - 2009
This project pivots around the collage-painting Karussell gen Osten (2009) created by Elena Lotti Astolfi in 2009 - then using the pseudonym of Irina von Brota. The artist simultaneously developed a poem, a musical composition, and an artist book as part of a singular, unified project. The aim was to elaborate a multidisciplinary and non-linear perspective on the painting, allowing a deeper interaction with it. Central elements of the artist book are 26 characters that shape the painted landscape, such as It’s Good Meat, The Hooligan Faun, One of the Four Winds, The Departure, which appear inside the book.
The project has been developed further with the production of 26 individual prints of the painting’s characters and an interactive DVD presentation of the artist book.
Concept, text, images, music composition and mixing by Elena Lotti Astolfi aka Irina von Brota © 2009
Please listen with headphones.
The manipulation of matter, the layering of disparate fragments as if they were skin and body shaped and de-constructed cyclically. Creating a collage is creating a body that loses every relation with paper. It becomes an organic surface, a body made of creases, derma, clotted liquids. An organism made of disparate fragments, material layers periodically bruised. An open wound. A surgical, obsessive, cyclical action that is never conclusive and therefore absolute. A process that operates through entropy and therefore creation. Revelation.
This concept book highlights the artist’s personal approach to collage making in relation to her queer identity and as a performative and visceral process of creation.
In the concept book El WeiSscream - Dissection of a Flat Body, the artist uses poetry and image to elaborate on this aspect of her work.
"El WeiSsCream" - Dissection of a Flat Body
Bundle
El WeiSsCream - Dissection of a Flat Body: 36 Pages 19 x 27 cm, 2006
Looking Through El WeiSsCream: 22 Pages 42 X 30 cm, 2006
Prototype to be printed in a limited edition of 32 copies.
Looking Through El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
Looking Through El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006
Looking Through El WeiSscream - book detail, 2006