By flattening and re-assembling the hierarchies of visual culture, Diena Georgetti creates an aesthetic universe that’s humane, democratic and in thrall to a vision entirely her own.

By Sara Savage JUL 2017

Inside Diena Georgetti’s apartment in Melbourne’s inner east, a laptop is open on the kitchen table. Flicking through folder upon folder of images saved from various corners of the web – from obscure online archives to open-access platforms like Pinterest – Georgetti sheds light on some of the sources that form the basis of her current painting practice, rooted in the act of borrowing, remixing and straight-up reproducing the work of others.

“Pre-internet, my sources came from magazines, catalogues and even films,” says the Alice Springs-born artist, with one click of the mouse revealing a folder containing images of Brazilian Neo-Concretism and 1970s Geometric Abstraction; with another, a coffee table she plans to buy for her living room. “Post-internet, I’ve been able to find all kinds of amazing work that’s happened on our planet, but has never really been seen in full. Only a handful out of thousands of artists ever makes the history books.”

In her use of the term, it’s unclear whether Georgetti – self-described as “uninterested in theory”, though explicitly influenced by Modernism – is acquainted with the discursive shitstorm surrounding the contested realm of ‘post-internet’ art, typified by the new-media aesthetics of Cory Arcangel, Amalia Ulman and countless others who self-reflexively employ the internet to both celebrate and critique it. In any case, it doesn’t matter: Georgetti means ‘post-internet’ in the purest sense, referring simply to her practice after she became privy to the world wide web. It’s this very abstinence from discourse – as naïve as it is a skill in ... Subscribe to read this article in full