Enrico Corte (; born 21 June 1963) is an Italian contemporary artist. He works in the fields of painting, sculpture, drawing, video art and photography. His exhibitions often include multimedia installations that mix diverse genres and form relationships both with the surrounding area and the viewing public by means of ever-changing combinations. He has lived for extended periods of time in Rome, London, Berlin, Paris and New York, always immersing himself in the contemporary culture and assimilating the tensions of the metropolitan counter-cultures.Marziani, Gianluca (2008). Enrico Corte - Spectrospective. Bologna: Damiani. . pp. 21-27 His works can be found in both private and public collections in Europe and the USA.
Some recurring themes constitute the artist’s poetic core. One element is the so-called "impossibility of the Tragic" within the system of contemporary art.Marziani, p. 44. Another theme is the co-existence of creation and destruction in the process of realizing a work, along with the analysis of the “dark side” of creativitySperelli, Patrizia (1995). "Quelli che vanno, quelli che restano". Flash Art n. 191. Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore. CL 11800550 ISSN 0015-3524. pp. 76-78.Beatrice, Luca; Perrella, Cristiana (1998). Nuova Arte Italiana. Rome: Castelvecchi. . pp. 71-74. which often coincides with the self-destruction of the artist’s personality.Marziani, p. 46.De Dominicis, Daniela (1994). "Profili e paesaggi". Flash Art n.186. Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore. CL 1180050X ISSN 0015-3524. pp. 75, 76.Politi, Giancarlo (1989). "La parola agli artisti". Flash Art News, Flash Art n.150. Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore. pp. 16,17. A frequent theme found in many of Corte’s works is the relationship between official artistic culture and the “underground” ferment that develops in urban alternative countercultures or subcultures.Marziani, pp. 25-27, 43, 47. The manifold theme of sex in general and, in particular, the relationship between pleasure and pain, are explored by Corte without restraint or prejudice;Marziani, p. 34. he himself ties the wide variety of artistic techniques and genres of his work to a genderqueer standpoint experienced personally by the artist.«Avrai sentito usare spesso termini come genderqueer, genderfluid, genderfree (…) noi “ci siamo dentro” da prima che venissero coniati.» Perra, Daniele (March 3, 2018). "La terza via dell'arte. Intervista a Enrico Corte e Andrea Nurcis". Artribune.
Life and career Enrico Corte was born in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia, Italy. He completed his courses of studies at the artistic high school in Cagliari, where he met a classmate, Andrea Nurcis, an artist with whom he began an artistic dialogue and partnership that has lasted to the present day.Altea, Giuliana; Magnani, Marco (1998). "Sardegna oggi". Flash Art n.212. Milan: Giancarlo Politi Editore. CL 11800763 ISSN 0015-3524. pp. 110-112. Corte began exhibiting in 1980;Enrico Corte interviewed by Enrico Piras and Alessandro Sau, Montecristo Writings, 2016, chapter 1. in 1982 he held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Cagliari,Galleria Comunale d'Arte di Cagliari, Official Website where he juxtaposed his works directly with those of the artists in the Gallery’s permanent collection, such as Giulio Paolini, Bridget Riley, Enrico Castellani, and Piero Gilardi.Musei Civici di Cagliari Official Web Site In addition to visual art, he was influenced by international literature, cinema, theatre and, above all, the history of music.Marziani, p. 20. In 1983, his interest in the cinema and theatre led to an encounter with the film director Mario Martone, who put him in touch with the Idra Duarte gallery in Naples, an experimental space run by artistsTondelli, Pier Vittorio (1990). Un weekend postmoderno. Milan: Bompiani. . pp. 229, 230. where Corte and Nurcis organized a double solo exhibition in 1986. They received the attention of the art critics Enrico Crispolti and Filiberto Menna,Fondazione Filiberto e Bianca Menna who invited them to exhibit at the 1986 Rome Quadriennale.Gatt, Giuseppe; Rossini, Giuseppe (1986). XI Quadriennale d'Arte di Roma. Milan: Fabbri Editori. ISBN BVE0159867. The Quadriennale aimed to take stock of the Italian visual art in the mid-1980s and included such artists as Francesco Clemente, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giuseppe Penone, Mimmo Paladino, Mario Merz.XI Quadrienale di Roma Official Web Site Through to his presence in the Quadriennale, Corte was introduced to some of the representatives of the cultural and artistic world in Rome, including Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Enzo Cucchi, Gino De Dominicis and, in particular, the multimedia artist Luigi Ontani. Ontani and Corte belonged to different generations but shared a common sensitivity and culture; they developed a friendship that inspired Ontani to write a presentation in the form of a poemMarziani, p. 46. of Corte’s first solo exhibition in Rome, at the Planita gallery in 1989. Enrico Crispolti will deepen his analysis of Corte's work in the 1994 book Il Novecento 3. Le ultime ricerche.Pirovano, Carlo; Crispolti, Enrico (1994). La pittura in Italia. Il Novecento/3. Le ultime ricerche. Milan: Electa. .
In 1988, Corte obtained his degree (Laurea, in Italian) from the university in the history of contemporary art with a thesis on the Austrian body artist Günter Brus, whom he met and interviewed in Graz in 1987.Marziani, p. 20. He then moved to Rome, where he established a studio with Andrea Nurcis. To finance his early projects, Corte worked as a 3D commercial artist, scenographer and actor, collaborating with, among others, the experimental film director Franco Brocani;Franco Brocani on IMDb.com his work with Brocani would later find a place in his art.Marziani, p. 50. In Rome, Corte met several artists of international fame, including Alberto Burri, Marina Abramović, Maurizio Cattelan, Joseph Kosuth, Andres Serrano.Marziani, p. 56. Corte also met photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, with whom he briefly worked as an assistant in 1997, looking for transgender models along the streets of Rome.Marziani, p. 56. During the 1990s, Corte became part of the "nuova scena"Beatrice, Luca; Curto, Guido; Perrella, Cristiana (1995). Nuova Scena. Artisti italiani degli anni '90. Milan: Mondadori. . pp. 18, 33. (new scene) of Italian art, being chosen by the critic Achille Bonito Oliva for a series of exhibitions in Rome and Milan,Bonito Oliva, Achille (1992). Imprimatur. Milan: Prearo. . by the critics Luca BeatriceLuca Beatrice on Artribune.com and Cristiana PerrellaCristiana Perrella on AADFI.it for the Equinozio d’Autunno exhibition at Castello di Rivara,Archivio Castello di Rivara near Turin, and by the critic Gianluca MarzianiGianluca Marziani Official Web Site for the exhibitionTrends, organized in 2001 by the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna.Auregli, Dede, et al. (2001). Trends: Roma. Ferrara: Edisai. . He also began to make trips to New York City.
In 1999, Swiss critic Harald Szeemann, director of the 48th Venice Biennale, invited Corte and Nurcis"E questo è ciò che anche io e Andrea abbiamo cercato di mettere in pratica, nel momento in cui la sorte ci ha fornito l’opportunità di essere artisti-curatori. Quando nel 1998 ri-incontriamo Harald Szeemann a Venezia (...) è lui che vuole affidare a noi e ad altri artisti di un nostro network romano la curatela di una sezione del padiglione Italia della Biennale ’99." Montecristo Writings, chapter 5. to organize as an artist/curator a program within the Oreste projectNorese, Giancarlo; Zerynthia (1999). Progetto Oreste Uno. Milan, Charta. . in the Room A of the Italian pavilion.Szeemann, Harald, et al. (1999). 48. Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte: dAPERTutto. Venice: Marsilio. .Norese, Giancarlo, et al. (2000). Oreste at the Venice Biennale. Milan: Charta. . pp. 128-137. The name they gave to their specific project was "Orestecinema: networking as a privileged method." The main topics dealt with the themes of international counterculture, creative hacking and political and cultural dissent. In addition to Room A of the Italian pavilion, Orestecinema expanded to other public spaces, including the Aula Magna of the Università Iuav di Venezia and the Chiostro of Tolentini, Venice.Oreste at the Venice Biennale, p. 128. With the sponsorship of J. Walter Thompson,Oreste at the Venice Biennale, p. 128. the two artists organized a series of film and video screenings and panel discussions between a number of international intellectuals, journalists, musicians, radio/television/theater directors, and the public of contemporary art. It put into practice Corte's desire to escape the "self-indulgent individualism of the artist,"Marziani, p. 56. a stance Corte relates to the Gramscian school of thought."Just as the Gramscian 'intellectual' must be ready to 'do' as well as think, so the intellectual figure of the artist must also 'organize' as well as create". Marziani, p.56. To secure the participation of three radio and television directors from the clandestine and main counter-information news station B92 in Belgrade – a city that at the time was at war – Corte had to seek diplomatic assistance from the Italian ambassador to Belgrade and financial support from George Soros' Open Society Foundations.Oreste at the Venice Biennale, p. 128. The result was an exhibition that included a countercultural critique of Slobodan Milošević, his regime and the civil war underway in the former Yugoslavia – just 200 kilometres from the Biennale. The press conference that followed, along with a number of interviews with guests of Orestecinema, was transcribed and published in the book "Oreste at the Venice Biennale."
In 2003, Corte began a working relationship with the Buia Gallery in New York, taking part in the Young Italian Genome group show.Young Italian Genome on undo.net Corte left Rome in 2008 and moved to Bologna for a brief period, after which he chose to concentrate his work in a studio/house in the countryside near Ravenna. In 2017, the critic Gianluca Marziani organized a double retrospective exhibition of Corte and Nurcis in the Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive museumPalazzo Collicola Arti Visive Official Website in Spoleto, Umbria. The exhibition, entitled ExcerptⒶ, celebrated 40 years of the artists’ work, occupying three floors of the museum.Perra, Artribune. ExcerptⒶ caught the attention of the director of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, Cristiana Collu,Cristiana Collu on MIBACT.it who in February 2018 organized a lecture with the two artists in the Galleria Nazionale where the entire exhibition was illustrated and discussed with the audience. On the occasion of the ExcerptⒶ exhibition and the artist’s lecture in the Galleria Nazionale, the aspect of Corte’s work in the field of musical compositionMarziani, p. 52. emerged – an activity on which he has been concentrating in recent years.
Works
The Botanical Rarities series (1981–present)