Luigi Ontani

Luigi Ontani
Luigi Ontani at the exhibition of his works at Accademia di San Luca, Rome, 5 June 2017
Born	November 24, 1943 Grizzana Morandi, Bologna
Nationality	Italian
Known for	painting, sculpture

Luigi Ontani (Grizzana Morandi, November 24, 1943) is an Italian painter and sculptor, a multifaceted artist who expresses himself through various artistic forms.

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna Ontani began his artistic career in the 1970s when he became known for his tableau vivants: photographed and videotaped performances in which he presented himself in different ways: from Pinocchio to Dante, Saint Sebastian to Baccus. These displays of "actionism" (different from Viennese Actionism, to which Hermann Nitsch is associated) verge on kitsch and raise personal narcissism to a higher level.

Throughout his long career Ontani has expressed his creativity and poetics through the use of many different techniques: from his "oggetti pleonastici" (1965–1969), made in plaster, to the "stanza delle similitudini," made with objects cut in corrugated fiberboard. He has often anticipated the use of techniques subsequently adopted by other artists: his first Super 8 films were made between 1969 and 1972. With his work "Ange Infidele" (1968) Ontani begins to experiment with photography. From the beginning his photography has been characterized by some particular elements: the subject is always the artist himself, who uses his own body and face to personify historic, mythological, literary and popular themes; the chosen formats are usually miniature and gigantography, and each work is considered unique. From the late 1960s on are "Teofania" (1969), "San Sebastiano nel bosco di Calvenzano, d'apres Guido Reni" Tentazione," "Meditazione, d'apres de la Tour," "Bacchino" (1970), "Tell il Giovane," "Raffaello," "Dante," " Pinocchio" (1972), "Lapsus Lupus," the diptych "EvAdamo" (1973), "Leda e il Cigno" (1974), "I grilli e i tappeti volanti" that will be followed by other "d'apres," and the first Indian cycle "En route vers l'Inde, d'apres Pierre Lotti." His first artistic photography has a historic importance because it anticipates a phenomenon that will be widespread and popular from the 1980s.