Massimo Agostinelli (born 25 September 1987) is a Switzerland-based

Italian American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

artist, businessman and activist who uses text,

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, ph ...

and

found object A found object (a calque from the French ''objet trouvé''), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already hav ...

s in his works with a particular focus on interventions.

Early life

Agostinelli was born in London, England and grew up in Manhattan, New York. His father is

Robert Agostinelli Robert Frank Agostinelli (born May 21, 1953) is an American billionaire financier who is the chairman and co-founder of private equity firm Rhône Group. ''Forbes'' estimates Agostinelli's net worth to be $1.0 billion, ranking him as the 416th ri ...

billionaire financier, his mother is Pascale Gallais, a Parisian Greek

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. Later he graduated from

Webster University Webster University is a private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, Missouri, United States. It has multiple branch locations across the United States and countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa. The university has an alumni net ...

. Back in London, Agostinelli became an apprentice printmaker and type setter.

Entrepreneurship

Agostinelli started his first internet company Myhomepage.com in 2009 and soon after became an early

Tesla Tesla most commonly refers to: * Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), a Serbian-American electrical engineer and inventor * Tesla, Inc., an American electric vehicle and clean energy company, formerly Tesla Motors, Inc. * Tesla (unit) (symbol: T), the SI-d ...

shareholder which led him to focus on the

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

ecosystem and is a self proclaimed ''

Musketeer A musketeer ( ) was a type of soldier equipped with a musket. Musketeers were an important part of early modern warfare, particularly in Europe, as they normally comprised the majority of their infantry. The musketeer was a precursor to the rifl ...

Disciple A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other figure. It can refer to: Religion * Disciple (Christianity), a student of Jesus Christ * Twelve Apostles of Jesus, sometimes called the Twelve Disciples * Seventy disciples in t ...

''. Agostinelli manages his family office Think 1st Principles (T1P) based on the core philosophy of ''“think first principles“''. applied to long term Muskonomy investments.

Art Career

His first art series, ''Palindromes'', consisted of mirror sheets imprinted with iconic images from art, history and

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

, overlaid with

palindrome A palindrome (Help:IPA/English, /ˈpæl.ɪn.droʊm/) is a word, palindromic number, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date "Twosday, 02/02/2020" and th ...

s. His ''Anagrams'' examined pop-culture icons by morphing their names into

anagram An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which ...

s by means of

lenticular printing Lenticular printing is a technology in which lenticular lenses (a technology also used for 3D displays) are used to produce printed images with an Depth perception, illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as they are viewed from diff ...

. In 2016 and 2019 Agostinelli was selected by

Simon de Pury Abram Simon Léonor Christian de Pury colloquially Simon de Pury (born 21 November 1951) is a Swiss auctioneer, art dealer, curator, collector, DJ, and photographer. In 2002, he acquired the majority control of the auction house Phillips. He ha ...

to exhibit at Dallas Contemporary for the MTV Staying Alive Foundation with Enoc Perez and

Marc Quinn Marc Quinn (born 8 January 1964) is a British contemporary visual artist whose work includes sculpture, installation, and painting. Quinn explores "what it is to be human in the world today" through subjects including the body, genetics, ident ...

curated by Neville Wakefield. In 2017 he participated in "the first

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

curated art exhibition" by Avant Arte and Unit London and in 2019 Altamarea Group's

Michelin Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...

starred

Marea Marea may refer to: * Marea (ancient city), Egypt * Mare' or Marea, a town in Syria * Marea (band), a Spanish hard rock band * Marea (restaurant), New York City * Marea Stamper (born 1977), American singer, songwriter, DJ, and record producer, known ...

commissioned a

diptych A diptych (, ) is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by a hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a ...

for their flagship

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

restaurants. Agostinelli is also among the permanent

private collection A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

of the Alpina Gstaad as well as a founding

patron Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people ...

of the

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is a public non-profit museum in Cape Town, South Africa. Zeitz MOCAA opened on September 22, 2017 as the largest museum of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. The museum is locat ...

. He has worked with various philanthropic organisations including,

AmfAR amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, known until 2005 as the American Foundation for AIDS Research, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of ...

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

, Caudwell Children, Innocence In Danger and the Laureus Foundation.

Interventions

To mark the 100th anniversary of

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

's 1917

Fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were o ...

, Agostinelli installed a steel

trashcan A waste container, also known as a dustbin, rubbish bin, trash can, garbage can, wastepaper basket, and wastebasket, among other names, is a type of container intended to store waste that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "r ...

at the 2017

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, an ...

fair in Switzerland with the phrase "la plus belle" written on top of it with white

acrylic Acrylic may refer to: Chemicals and materials * Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound * Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity * Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosettin ...

marker. (In French, it means "the most beautiful", but it is also a

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

on "la poubelle", French for "the garbage bin".) The bin was positioned in front of the art booths

Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery. History Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by co-president Marc Payot. In 2020, Ewan Venters was ap ...

and

White Cube White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centra ...

. It was hailed; "''one of the most engaging works made in 2017''" by a member of the Nahmad clan. The original trash can was subsequently exhibited at Galerie von Vertes in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...

praised the

institutional critique In art, institutional critique is the systematic inquiry into the workings of art institutions, such as galleries and museums, and is most associated with the work of artists like Michael Asher (artist), Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel B ...

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

installation by stating; Agostinelli "''turned trash cans into treasure''", while '' Vanity Fair'' drew reference to Duchamp. Agostinelli returned to the fair in 2018 during the VIP opening, planting a

basil Basil (, ; , ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' (, )), also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a hardiness (plants), tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" r ...

plant in the

Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...

booth directly in front of a John Chamberlain sculpture flanked by

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

and

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko ( ; Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz until 1940; September 25, 1903February 25, 1970) was an American abstract art, abstract painter. He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular reg ...

works. As another nod to the

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

/basil pun, he turned the water in the

fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were o ...

outside the Messeplatz green on opening day. Members of his entourage who witnessed the intervention included, Helly Nahmad,

Joseph Nahmad Joseph Nahmad (born 1990, New York City) is an American art dealer of Syrian Jewish descent, and the founder of the Nahmad Contemporary gallery, located on 980 Madison Avenue in New York. Opened in 2013, the gallery specializes in contemporary art ...

, David Mugrabi and

Nellee Hooper Paul Andrew "Nellee" Hooper (born 15 March 1963) is a British record producer, remixer and songwriter known for his work with many major recording artists beginning in the late 1980s. He also debuted as a motion picture music composer with Scot ...

, all of which was later dubbed ''"the

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

invasion"'' by art historian Diana Picasso. In 2019 Agostinelli staged his third consecutive site-specific

conceptual Conceptual may refer to: Philosophy and Humanities *Concept *Conceptualism *Philosophical analysis (Conceptual analysis) *Theoretical definition (Conceptual definition) *Thinking about Consciousness (Conceptual dualism) *Pragmatism (Conceptual pr ...

art installation Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often cal ...

. Placing a real dead rat with a tag attached to its tail, reading ' Blase' - entitling the work '' Rat Blase'', which is an anagram of '

'. The rat was situated between

Beyeler Foundation The Beyeler Foundation or Fondation Beyeler, with its museum in Riehen, near Basel (Switzerland), owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, which features modern and traditional art. The Beyeler Foundation museum includes ...

David Zwirner Gallery David Zwirner Gallery is an American contemporary art gallery owned by David Zwirner. It has four gallery spaces in New York City and one each in Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, and Paris. History The Zwirner Gallery opened in 1993 on the gr ...

and Helly Nahmad Gallery in reference to the

rat race A rat race is a metaphor used to describe an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. The phrase is sometimes used to relate the human life to that of rats attempting to earn an ultimately pointless reward when Mortality salience, death ...

. In an interview with

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

Agostinelli cited as partial inspiration,

Vito Schnabel Vito Schnabel (born July 27, 1986) is an American art dealer, actor, writer and producer. He is the owner of Vito Schnabel Gallery, which has locations in New York and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Life and career Vito Schnabel was born on July 27, ...

's exhibition by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, The New Colossus. In addition,

stated; "The power of Agostinelli's work is to be able to show the viewer that today's art world has no boundaries." For the 2019

Frieze Art Fair Frieze Art Fair is an annual contemporary art, contemporary art festival, art fair first held in 2003 in London's Regent's Park. Developed by the founders of the contemporary art magazine ''Frieze (magazine), Frieze'', the fair has since expan ...

in London, Agostinelli staged an intervention by depositing a 1

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

block of translucent

ICE Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

(

Internal Combustion Engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

) pulled by a

Tesla Model X The Tesla Model X is a battery electric mid-size luxury crossover SUV built by Tesla, Inc. since 2015. Developed from the full-sized sedan platform of the Tesla Model S, the vehicle notably uses falcon wing doors for rear passenger access. ...

to the entrance of the fair on opening day. Entitling the work '''Freeze''', a

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

of '

Frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

'. Additionally, he placed another sculpture in the shape of '''XX''' in front of White Cube's booth, referencing the 2.0 °C climatic tipping point.

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments i ...

compared it to Olafur Eliasson's '''Ice Watch''' installation outside

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

compared it to Andy Goldsworthy's '''Snow Ball installation. Agostinelli said his initial inspiration derived from examining the

Parthenon Frieze The Parthenon frieze is the low-relief Mount Pentelicus#Pentelic marble, Pentelic marble sculpture created to adorn the upper part of the Parthenon's Cella, naos. It was sculpted between and 437 BC, most likely under the direction of Phidias. O ...

from the

Acropolis of Athens The Acropolis of Athens (; ) is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens, Greece, and contains the remains of several Ancient Greek architecture, ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, ...

at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. During the 2021

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

fair Agostinelli installed an intervention involving a

Batman Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...

mask A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment, and often employed for rituals and rites. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes, ...

and two

inflatable An inflatable is an object that can be inflated with a gas, usually with air, but hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen are also used. One of several advantages of an inflatable is that it can be stored in a small space when not inflated, since inflat ...

bats Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

- entitling the work ‘''Real Bats''’ in black

, an

of ‘Art Basel’. Written on verso was the

simile A simile () is a type of figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit c ...

‘''as blind as a bat''’, highlighting the

homograph A homograph (from the , and , ) is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also be pronounced differently, while the Oxford English Dictionar ...

, ‘bats’ and dated in

palindromic A palindrome ( /ˈpæl.ɪn.droʊm/) is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as ''madam'' or '' racecar'', the date " 02/02/2020" and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Pana ...

format 12.2.21 / 12.02.2021.

stated; "Agostinelli is truly dedicated in supporting Musk’s vision and raising awareness through art activism in order to help accelerate the world's

transition to sustainable energy An energy transition (or energy system transformation) is a major structural change to energy supply and consumption in an energy system. Currently, a transition to sustainable energy is underway to limit climate change. Most of the sustainable ...

Solo exhibitions

*''Palindromes'', London, 2014 *''Anagrams'', New York, 2015 *''Constellations'', Cape Town, 2016 *''Elements'', London, 2017 *''Perspectives'', Gstaad, 2018 *''Signs'', London, 2019 *Interventions, 2020

References

External links

*The Alpina Gstaadbr>Discerning Eye Exhibition 2017Love Rocks , Claridge's 2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agostinelli, Massimo Living people 1987 births 21st-century American artists American male painters Webster University alumni Artists from New York (state) American conceptual artists American expatriates in Switzerland American contemporary painters