Ghostwriting Paul Thek: Time Capsules and Reliquaries

In the Studio

We are pleased to announce Ghostwriting Paul Thek: Time Capsules and Reliquaries, an exhibition by artist Alessandro Di Pietro. The exhibition opens on 16.09.23 and will be on view until 29.10.23 at Le Studio, CAN.

Ghostwriting Paul Thek is a series of new sculptures, a new painting and a film by Alessandro Di Pietro in dialogue with the work of artist Paul Thek (1933-1988). During a residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2017, Di Pietro began exploring an imaginary story in which Thek would not have died prematurely, continuing his artist’s practice posthumously. My intent was to ghostwrite for Paul Thek, explains Di Pietro. I continued his mysterious narratives in my terms, adjusting them to the discourses surrounding today’s history: the sociopolitical narratives and facts of our time. My process was imagining how a story — in this case, the story of an artist’s work — would have continued if it hadn’t been cut short.

Ghostwriting Paul Thek: Time Capsules and Reliquaries follows Di Pietro’s recent residency and exhibition at the Watermill Center in New York (USA), where he developed Race of a Hippie, a short film inspired by Thek’s iconic work Death of a Hippie, which depicts the death and resurrection of an artist. Balancing fact and fiction, and exploring questions of US influence, appropriation and artistic agency, the exhibition highlights Paul Thek’s enduring and elusive legacy.

CAN
 team
Martin Jakob, Sylvie Linder, Nicolas Raufaste, Liza Trottet, Sebastian Verdon