Jean Soldini

Jean Soldini (1956) was born in the Italian speaking Switzerland. Philosopher and art historian, he lives in Geneva. He studied in Paris, where he gained the “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” (president of the examining board: Jacques Rancière), following a PhD in philosophy and an earlier PhD in the field of history and art. In the philosophical sphere his studies have turned on an aesthetic that is inseparable from hospitality as resistance for and with the multitude of beings, their common spaces and their contaminations. This is entwined with the research he has conducted for nearly forty years into Alberto Giacometti. Between 1985 and 1990, Soldini oversaw the reorganisation of the Pinacoteca Cantonale Giovanni Züst. He has worked on medieval painting, sacred art between past and present, art and architecture from the 17th to the 20th century. He has taught for more than three decades. As a poet he has published three collections of verses.

Among his publications are: Alberto Giacometti. Le colossal, la mère, le “sacré”, L’Âge d'Homme, Lausanne 1993 (translation into French of the Italian edition by Lubrina Editore, Bergamo 1991), Saggio sulla discesa della bellezza. Linee per un’estetica, Jaca Book, Milan 1995, Alberto Giacometti. La somiglianza introvabile, Jaca Book, Milan 1998, Il riposo dell’amato. Una metafisica per l’uomo nell’epoca del mercato come fine unico, Jaca Book, Milan 2005, Storia, memoria, arte sacra tra passato e futuro, in Sacre Arti, edited by F. Gualdoni, texts by T. Tzara, S. Yanagi, T. Burckhardt, FMR, Bologna 2008. Resistenza e ospitalità, Jaca Book, Milano 2010, A testa in giù. Per un'ontologia della vita in comune, prefazione di René Schérer, Mimesis, Milan-Udine 2012, Alberto Giacometti. L'espace et la force, Éditions Kimé, Paris 2016 (translation into Italian: Alberto Giacometti. Lo spazio e la forza, Mimesis, Milan-Udine 2016), Alberto Giacometti. Grafica al confine fra arte e pensiero / Graphics on the Border between Art and Thought, edited by Jean Soldini and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini, Skira, Milan 2020.

Poetry: Cose che sporgono, Edizioni “alla chiara fonte”, Lugano, 2004, Bivacchi, Edizioni Ulivo, Balerna 2009, Tenere il passo, preface by Jean-Charles Vegliante, Edizioni Lietocolle, Faloppio (Como) 2014.

WEBSITE:

https://sites.google.com/view/jean-soldini