China Made in Italy, 2008

Gabriele di Matteo’s work as a painter highlights the tensions between copy and original, as well as the notion of the author in contemporary art.

His series of paintings consistently redefine the shift from conceptual creation to material execution. In Quadro di Famiglia [Family Portrait] (2011), the artist commissioned expert copyists from Naples to reproduce twenty commercial copies of Velázquez masterpiece Las Meninas, while in Jackson Pollock, Une vie, éléments et documents (2009) he transformed several photographs depicting Pollock’s private life into paintings. 

Besides exploring art history in his objects, subjects, and strategies, Di Matteo’s China Made in Italy addresses the issue of (re)production from a global and political perspective. This series of paintings consists of black-and-white copies of paintings by Chinese superstar artists currently valued at millions, but in this case executed by Italian artisans. Gabriele di Matteo’ works shake our common conceptions of originality, branding and luxury, while at the same time point out the accelerated dynamics currently reshaping the global art world. (SG)