Simon Moretti is known for his enigmatic exhibition works, presenting displays that engage with questions of agency, temporality, automatism, desire and masculinity. Incorporating appropriated images and archives as well as curatorial and publishing projects, often made in collaboration with other artists, his work addresses the role of 'curating as practice'. Presented as a non-chronological visual essay, this publication surveys 10 years of collage works by Moretti. It includes text contributions from writer Craig Burnett, curator and art historian Yuval Etgar, novelists Deborah Levy and Chloe Aridjis, and a conversation with Andrew Durbin, editor-in-chief of Frieze. Simon Moretti is an artist based in London. His work deals with context and display through the use of appropriated images, archives, curatorial projects and publishing projects, often in collaboration with other artists. Recent exhibitions include Crocodile Cradle, PEER, London (2021); None of the Above, a project by John Armleder, KANAL–Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2020); The Enigma of the Hour: 100 Years of Psychoanalytic Thought, with Goshka Macuga, Freud Museum, London (2019); A Utopian Stage: To Be Free is to Loose Sight of the Shore, curated by Vali Mahlouji, Dhaka Art Summit 18, Bangladesh (2018); Revolt of the Sage, with Craig Burnett, Blain Southern, London (2017); The Camera Exposed, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2016). SELLING POINTS: . Presented as a non-chronological visual essay, this publication surveys 10 years of collage works by Simon Moretti 72 colour, 58 b/w illustrations
Author Biography:
Simon Moretti is an artist based in London. His work deals with context and display through the use of appropriated images, archives, curatorial projects and publishing projects, often in collaboration with other artists. Recent exhibitions include Crocodile Cradle, PEER, London (2021); None of the Above, a project by John Armleder, KANAL–Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2020); The Enigma of the Hour: 100 Years of Psychoanalytic Thought, with Goshka Macuga, Freud Museum, London (2019); A Utopian Stage: To Be Free is to Loose Sight of the Shore, curated by Vali Mahlouji, Dhaka Art Summit 18, Bangladesh (2018); Revolt of the Sage, with Craig Burnett, Blain Southern, London (2017); The Camera Exposed, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2016). Chloe Aridjis is the author of three novels, Book of Clouds (2009), which won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger in France; Asunder (2013), set in London's National Gallery; and Sea Monsters (2019), which was awarded the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Chloe has written for various art journals and in 2015 was guest curator of the Leonora Carrington exhibition at Tate Liverpool. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 and the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award for 2020. Craig Burnett is the author of Jeff Wall (2005), Philip Guston: The Studio (2014) and a chapbook of poems, Bucolic Stop (2019), as well as essays on Emma Hart, John Stezaker, Dana Schutz, Nicolas Poussin and others. He lives in London and is Senior Director at Frith Street Gallery. Andrew Durbin is a writer and the editor-in-chief of frieze magazine. He is the author of MacArthur Park (2017) and Skyland (2020). He lives in London. Yuval Etgar, DPhil., is a curator and art historian who specialises in the history and theory of collage. His books on this subject include Louise Nevelson: The Collages (2022), John Stezaker: At the Edge of Pictures (2020) and The Ends of Collage (2017), alongside contributions to journals and exhibition catalogues, such as the National Galleries of Scotland’s Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage (2019). Etgar is currently working on Phaidon’s first survey of collage in contemporary art, Vitamin C+. Novels by Deborah Levy include Swimming Home (2011), Hot Milk (2016) and The Man Who Saw Everything (2019) – all nominated for the Booker Prize.
