Antonio was born in 1958 in Marostica, Italy. Lives and works in Bassano del Grappa and London.
Eclectic, visionary and controversial at the same time Riello does not only manipulate the images and objects
that he invents. Moreover, he almost mistreats them to the extent of turning his ironical visions into a powerful
conceptual travesty of contemporary world. Suffice to mention one of his recent ‘biblioclastic’ interventions:
a ritualistic, ‘sacrificial’ burning of his mother’s library (Salon Vert, London, 2012). It came in response to
the protests ‘burning’ worldwide since the late 2000, the ongoing violence therein, the role played by digital
technologies in the process, and the media effects thus produced. Similarly, Riello’s Elegant War is a sort of critical
study about the current digital propaganda and its paradoxical, sometimes even weird nature. In this project,
conceived especially for the 4th Çanakkale Biennial, he argues the following: “Today, anyone involved in social
conflicts inevitably deals with digital media. We are constantly looking for the most ‘iconic’ images pertinent
to these events, so they could be taken, posted online and shared among anonymous viewers. What such an
attitude reveals is, in fact, a certain kind of visual appeal, often too morbid or intimidating to be perceived at all:
it plays with the eye insofar as such images, like weapons, have increasingly become a powerful tool to have our
perception of reality led in many, even dangerous directions”.
