A candle was lit in the square for each newborn born in the hospital. “But is it true or is it a rumor?” In Bergamo, the city where he first brought his installation in 1998, many still wonder if the connection between the lampposts of the central Piazza Dante and the maternity ward of the municipal hospital (first the Riuniti, then the Papa Giovanni XXIII (both how far from the clearing as the crow flies) was a reality or a «fake». And if the turning on of the lamps completely outside of business hours is in fact related to the tantrums of the electrical system. But no, it’s all true and that’s true a project by Alberto Garutti from 1998. “The streetlights of this square – he wrote on a pavement – are connected to the maternity ward of the Ospedali Riuniti.” Every time the light pulses slowly, it means that a child has been born.”
Monument to the Born and the “Voices” in Piazza Gae Aulenti
The button in the hospital was really there, as was the electrical pulse, though few tourists glanced at the floor to notice the worn, partially illegible writing, part of the original artwork. The Monument to the Newborns of Bergamo (and its poetic “clones” taken to other cities, from Rome to Ghent, to Istanbul, to Moscow and Plovdiv) is just one of Garutti’s works, Artist and historian, professor at the Brera Academy and the Polytechnic, who died in Milan on Saturday evening at the age of 75. He was considered a “master of public art”. In Milan it is his “egg”, the work in Piazza Gae Aulenti that through twenty-three trumpets ideally connects four levels of coverage. The idea? Place your ear in one of the “tubes” to be able to hear urban sounds and noise. Another sentence at the foot of the work: “These tubes connect different places and rooms of the building, of this work.” is dedicated to those who will think of the voices and sounds of the city as they pass through». Regarding the installation in Bergamo (where the square has since been transformed and redesigned, but the work was celebrated in 2021 with an exhibition by Gamec, the city’s modern art gallery), in an interview with the Giornale dell Art in March 2023 stated: “Of all my works, “Ai Nati oggi” was the work that touched the audience the most. I think it’s an interesting job because throughout history there have been memorials to the fallen, the wounded, the tragedies, the dead… And instead I created a work that was kind of an anti-memorial to the living , and that had great feedback. I did “Ai nati oggi” for the first time in Bergamo in 1998 after the death of my mother made me think about the subject of childbirth».
Lecturer in Brera and at the Polytechnic
Born in Galbiate (Lecco) in 1948, he lived and worked in Milan. As an artist and teacher he taught at the Iuav in Venice, Faculty of Design and Art Professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan and until 2013 holder of the chair for paintingBrera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where he was considered one of the most “historical” voices.
Global Signature
He has been invited to major international events such as the Venice Biennale in 1990, the Istanbul Biennale in 2001 and the Memory Marathon at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2012 and has often been invited to create public works for cities and museums: in Gent in Belgium for the Smak on the occasion of the exhibition Over the Edges (2000), in Kanazawa in Japan (2002) in collaboration with the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, in Herford in Germany for the MARTa Museum (2003) , in Moscow for the Moscow Museum of Modern Art as part of the exhibition Impossible Community (2011) e in Milan in the Porta Nuova district commissioned by Hines Italia (2012).
“To Those Born Today”
In 2019 Alberto Garutti created three large permanent works near Caorle (Venice) after winning an international art competition organized by Assicurazioni Generali – Genagricola SpA in 2017 and created a site-specific work for the new Maxxi headquarters in L’Aquila . Make permanent work triggerable Relations and connections between public and private institutions and the social fabric of the city. The works “Ai nati oggi” are based exactly in this direction, as well as in Antwerp with the opera “Tutti i passi”, at Malpensa Airport and Cadorna Train Station in Milanon the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella in Florence and on the lake in Lugano.