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Giovanni Aloi

@dr.aloi

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author, curator, and editor specializing in the representation of nature and the environment in art.

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Some more images from my solo exhibition Taraxacum Officianale: Growth Growth Growth! with @division_of_labour at Holy Trinity Church, London N1OHN.
Here in Holy Trinity Church this body of work takes on extra meaning.
In this solo exhibition, Hilary Jack borrows and subverts the political and economic slogan “Growth, Growth, Growth!”. In doing so she questions a system in which economic expansion is prioritised over the well-being of nature, community and the Earth itself.

This year the Officinale re-imagines the depletion of Para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) and looks to new inventions in dandelion cultivation as a way to alleviate deforestation and the slow regeneration, as the stock holders (some estimates show 71% are men with invested assets) snap at the heels of this new resource.

The work in this exhibition reflects on the relationships between everyday objects, the natural world, and the industrial extraction of natural resources. A chair made of wood reminds us it was once a tree; a bicycle wheel, mounted on a stool, is reimagined including a tyre manufactured from dandelion serum; The Taraxagum Officinale (After Duchamp) 2026. A series of collages juxtapose rural landscapes with scenes of industrial extraction, revealing how natural resources are removed and consumed, driving environmental degradation and social inequality, a contradiction often described as the “Paradox of Plenty”; a found Victorian scythe points to the fact that everything we do in the cycle of our lives have consequences.
#cycleoflife #hilaryjack #collage #paradoxofplenty #divisionoflabour

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Finally all my semester work is done and I can enjoy my short between semesters break! I start with immersion into this beautiful book by my dear professor and forever mentor @dr.aloi !

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For anyone who paints, draws, writes, makes music. Especially for those who have invested time and money being taught how to do it by one of the many institutions created to that end. But even if, like me, you did a science degree, @dr.aloi uncompromising critique of the ‘myth of the artist’ from before the Renaissance to the modern day is utterly compelling. Yes, it’s academic. But written by someone who themselves creates, as well as teaches and curates the work of others, it comes from a place of personal experience that is both insightful and believable. Aloi is not standing on the outside looking in, but on the inside, going, ‘Oh my God, what have we created!’ And certainly, his love of the natural world is a refreshing way to take a mirror up to what is essentially man-ufactured. But most of all, it is hilarious. His comment about sophisticated intellectuals and their love of the obsidian being like ‘Art Drag’ had me in stitches. Followed up by the observation that if they did choose to wear colour at an opening ‘better it be intense, and the outfit custom-made and geometrically awkward.’ Of course, where Aloi really excels is in his knowledge of art history. Who knew, for instance, that the CIA helped to fund Abstract Expressionist artists in the Cold War, establishing some of the world’s best-known painters. As a former advertising copywriter who almost never got to claim their work, I was warmed by how Aloi defends and elevates the sweat of those whose creativity will never fit the strict confines of the art gallery or art college. And as someone who loves strolling around cavernous spaces filled with paintings, sculptures and installations, it’s great to have been given a new lens through which to see what those institutions have deemed worthy. I have folded the edges of so many pages in this book, in order to highlight some of the most thought-provoking analogies, but now I’m sat reviewing it, rather than peppering this post with more quotes, I say just buy the book. Photo of Giovanni is by Chris Hunter. (Longer review on FB) #artcritic #mythoftheartist #mythoftheartistgenius #iamnotanartist #iamarealartist

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Excited to share that my article about the sabra (prickly pear cochineal) has been published in the wonderful Antennae Journal - Realism 🌵
@telavivmuseumofart @mira_lapidot
@dr.aloi #antennaejournal #realism #nature

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🌿 Don't miss this inspiring seminar!

Botanical Revolutions: How Plants Changed the Course of Art

Giovanni Aloi
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

@dr.aloi 's presentation will take place this Friday, 17 April - 2 PM CEST in Sala Berengo at Ca’ Foscari
(1st floor).

➡ A remote participation option will also be available (Link in Bio).

The talk will address the history and representation of #plants in #art, reflecting on our relationship with the botanical world and proposing an alternative perspective on art history that foregrounds the role of plants.

The event is part of NICHE’s Art Ecologies (@crismi77) and New Books series and will include a discussion of Aloi’s book Botanical Revolutions.

#BotanicalRevolution #cafoscariuniversity #ArtEcology #NICHE #Seminar #Books #envhum

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Don’t miss Giovanni Aloi’s presentation this Friday, 17 April, at 2 p.m. CEST in the sala Berengo at Ca’ Foscari (1st floor). For those who cannot be in Venice, there will also be an option to join remotely (see the poster for details).
Giovanni will delve deeply into the history and representation of plants in art, advocate for a change in our relationship with the botanical world, and present an alternative history of art that foregrounds the truly indispensable contributions of plants.
It is a tremendous joy, dear Giovanni, to have you with us and discuss your wonderful book “Botanical Revolutions” as part of NICHE’s Art Ecologies and New Books series. A must-have for any bookshelf!

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An awe-inspiring compilation of collaborators and contributors to the ever-expanding, transdisciplinary, genre-bending, gender-bending, mind-bending anthology, in print and on line. Learn more at queerflora.org (link in bio).
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#qfff
#queerflorafaunafunga
#queerecology
#collaboration
#art

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Soon approaching on Sunday — the link to join the online presentation is linked in our bio 🔗

Plattform: Giovanni Aloi
Botanical Revolutions
Plants, Art, and Critical Plant Studies
Sun 22 Feb, 14:00
Online 🔗 in bio

In this Plattform lecture, @dr.aloi offers an expansive introduction to critical plant studies through art history and contemporary artistic practice. Taking his recent book Botanical Revolutions as a point of departure, Aloi traces how plants have shaped the course of art — not only as motifs or materials, but as active agents that have transformed ways of thinking, making, and representing the world.

The online lecture and conversation is moderated by @siljaleifsdottir and is presented as part of Plattform, Bergen Kunsthall’s ongoing series for talks, lectures, and conversations, and in connection with the exhibition “Iter Subterraneum”.

Moving across examples from ancient mythologies, Indigenous knowledge systems, modern art, and contemporary practices, the lecture addresses themes such as anthropocentrism in art history, plant blindness, material agency, and the ethics of representation. Aloi discusses how artists have engaged with plants to challenge symbolic reduction, rethink authorship, and explore questions of identity, migration, indigeneity, and ecological responsibility.

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Artist Walkthrough with Luftwerk and Kate Joyce

Saturday, February 21st, 3 - 5 pm
1801 W Hubbard Street

Join art historian Giovanni Aloi and exhibiting artists Luftwerk and Kate Joyce in a conversational walkthrough of Luftwerk: The Sun Standing Still and concurrent survey exhibition Luminous Matter. Through exploration of the works, the conversation will interrogate the artist's practice as engaging simultaneously with the built and natural world.

Reception with exhibiting artists to follow.

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Luftwerk's interest lies in the interaction between the natural and built worlds: their current exhibition meditates on the fleeting perception of light and atmosphere, exploring how color, devoid of literal representation, can evoke emotional and sensory responses.
As recently featured in the 2025 @chicagoarchitecturebiennial , Luftwerk’s practice involves engaging with notable modern and contemporary architecture. Luftwerk has completed site-specific interventions within the works of renowned architects, including Mies van de Rohe (Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago; German Pavilion, Barcelona; Farnsworth House, Plano), Bruce Goff (Ford Residence, Aurora), and Frank Lloyd Wright (Fallingwater, Mill Run; Robie House, Chicago).

Having photographed architecture throughout her career, Kate Joyce readily recognizes familiar patterns and forms from the built world. In her Space Craft series, featured in the survey exhibition Luminous Matter, Joyce creates "scale-free micro-architectures of light". Photographing optical prisms pushed to fantastical scale in large black and white prints evokes photography's compressed relationship to space.

Art historian and curator Giovanni Aloi’s focus lies in the representation of nature and the environment in contemporary art. His recent curatorial project "Materialities" at the Driehaus Museum uncovers the newfound prominence of materiality in art. He asserts that a growing awareness of the world as the result of compounding collaborative processes with other living and non-living actors.
@dr.aloi

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Luftwerk, Solargraph: Shortest Day, 2025
Aluminum and acrylic paint
24 x 57.25 x 2 inches

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The perfect inspiring book lecture yesterday evening at @oakspringgardenfoundation by author, @dr.aloi to get you in the mindset of spring.

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Save the date!
Plattform: Giovanni Aloi
Botanical Revolutions
Plants, Art, and Critical Plant Studies
Sun 22 Feb, 14:00
Online

In this Plattform lecture, @dr.aloi offers an expansive introduction to critical plant studies through art history and contemporary artistic practice. Taking his recent book Botanical Revolutions as a point of departure, Aloi traces how plants have shaped the course of art — not only as motifs or materials, but as active agents that have transformed ways of thinking, making, and representing the world.

The online lecture and conversation is moderated by @siljaleifsdottir and is presented as part of Plattform, Bergen Kunsthall’s ongoing series for talks, lectures, and conversations, and in connection with the exhibition "Iter Subterraneum".

Moving across examples from ancient mythologies, Indigenous knowledge systems, modern art, and contemporary practices, the lecture addresses themes such as anthropocentrism in art history, plant blindness, material agency, and the ethics of representation. Aloi discusses how artists have engaged with plants to challenge symbolic reduction, rethink authorship, and explore questions of identity, migration, indigeneity, and ecological responsibility.

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Read on esse.ca | A review by Giovanni Aloi on the 𝗥𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝘀𝗮𝘄𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲, on view at the The Museum of Modern Art, New York until February 7.

“Ruth Asawa was animated by an irrepressible desire to break rules in subtle, elegant, concentrated, and meticulous ways. In this retrospective at MoMA, there are no contemporary dramas on display, none of the ubiquitous nods to politics or power. The galleries are suffused with a meditative silence that evokes the balance of a submerged world: stable, unperturbed, yet always and continuously alive and morphing.”

⤷ Create a free account to read the full review online

📸 : Ruth Asawa, 𝘈 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, exhibition view, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2025. © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. Photo: Jonathan Dorado, courtesy of David Zwirner, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris & Hong Kong

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