The Summer Show

Liliana Moro (Milan, 1961) works and lives in Milan. When approaching her artworks, we have the perception that only what is strictly necessary is present. Sound, words, sculptures, objects and performance, create a world that “stages” a reality simultaneously raw and poetic. These are territories of an individual experience (that of the artist but mainly of the viewer) that ask for going beyond from what is visible. The reduction to the essential understood as an attitude, a practice and a positioning, does not result from a retate of a minimal language; it is rather something that that the artist triggers both when choosing to use elaborated techniques and when opting to use existent materials and everyday objects. A prominent element in Liliana Moro’s research is the political dimension, not translated in the illustration of contents, but related to the forms of addressing the recipients: for example by placing her work on the ground she implicitly asks the viewer to bend down to see it. Freedom of action is an important aspect of the artist’s work and it defines it but only partially: what creates an interesting difference is the relation between the universe of possibilities and a tension- both physical and poetical- produced from this relation.

Liliana Moro exhibited her work in major international group and solo exhibitions including: Documenta IV, Kassel; Aperto, XLV Venice Biennial; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Quadriennale, Rome; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; PS1 New York; De Appel, Amsterdam; Triennale Milan, MAXXI, Rome; Galleria Nazionale d’arte, Rome; 58th Venice Biennial, Italian Pavillion; Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan; Greta Meert Bruxelles; MUHKA, Antwerpen; Italian Institute of Culture, Los Angeles; Fondazione A. Ratti, Como; Cubo Garutti-Museion, Bozen. One of her works is permanent at Fondazione Zegna, Trivero.

Mario Airò (Pavia, 1961) attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera (Milan) and graduated in Painting in 1988. He lives and works in Milan. His work is characterized by a wide range of cultural references that include literature, cinema, history of art, natural elements and everyday objects. He took part in the Valencia Biennial, Venice Biennial in 1997 and 2003, he exposed at PAC in Milan, Moscow Biennial of contemporary art in 2005.

Among the most recent exhibitions he took part in: Palazzo Matteucci, Fermo, IT (2022); Museo Gigi Guadagnucci, Massa, IT; Vistamare, Pescara, IT (2021); Twist, Triennale, Milano, IT (2016);  Galleria Vistamare, Pescara, IT (2011); Mario Airò, a cura di Oscar Aschan, Kungsbacka, SV (2009); XIV Esposizione Quadriennale d’Arte Roma (2005).

Elisabetta Benassi (Rome, 1966) is an Italian artist. In her work she critically observes the cultural, political and artistic legacy of modernity, as well as broader, often controversial political and cultural themes of our time. Using diverse media – installation, photography, video – she thus engages and questions the viewer while tracing troubled and contested timelines. From the background of her work emerges a questioning of contemporary identity and of the conditions of the present. Her work has been shown at several venues worldwide, including the Venice Biennale.

She took part in many solo and group exhibitions among: MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (2022/2023); Crypta Balbi, Rome, permanent installation (2022); Panorama, Procida (2021); Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris. (2020); Italian Cultural Institute, London, UK (2019); Renata Fabbri, Milan, Italy (2018); Galerie 3, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France (2017); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2015); MAXXI, Rome, Italy (2013); GAMeC, Bergamo (2011); Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy (2009); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2007); MOCA, Shanghai (2006); The Second International Video Biennal in Israel, Tel Aviv, Israel;Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France (2004); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2003).

She wrote different books like: It Starts with the Firing, Nero: Rome, 2017; The King Leopold’s Soliloquy, Nero: Rome, 2015.

Elisa Sighicelli (Turin, 1968) She received her B.A. (Honors) in 1995 from Kingston University, London, and her M.F.A. in 1997 from Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.

Elisa Sighicelli’s work scrutinizes ordinary things, in an attempt to make them intensely ordinary. In her work, images are revealed through light; darkness transforms reality and allows the image to be open and suggestive.

In her work she uses a peculiar and personal technique: she applies photographies on plexiglass slabs and then she backlights them so that only some parts of the image are visible. The result is something that seems like a little theatrical set with dark areas where the light stands out and generate the work of art.

She had her first solo shows at Genillard Gallery, London (1998) and at Gio’ Marconi, Milan (1999). From that moment on she exposed her work in many solo and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Then she started collaborating with Gagosian Gallery, that dedicated many exhibitions to her work. She had solo shows at Belfor, Le Mans, Salamanca, Santiago di Compostela, Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, New York, Prague, Siena and a big anthological exhibition at GAM in Turin in 2007. She took part in the XIV Quadriennale in Rome (2005) and LIII Venice Biennial (2009).

Recent solo shows include “Santiago,” Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Spain (2000); Fondation Salomon, France (2003); Fondation pour l’art contemporain Claudine et Jean–Marc Salomon, France (2003); Národní Muzeum, Prague (2004); Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Italy (2005); and GAM, (Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea), Italy (2007). Sighicelli’s work has been part of numerous group exhibitions including: Hertzliya Museum, Tel Aviv (2001); Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Italy (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2003); Musée des Beaux–Arts, France (2004); Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, England (2005); Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi (2007); MAMBO, Italy (2008); Site-specific project for the children hospital Regina Margherita, Turin in collaboration with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (2009); Gagosian Gallery, New York (2010); Gagosian Gallery, Geneva (2013); MOT International, London (2014).

Eva Marisaldi was born in Bologna in 1966, where she currently lives and works. Right from her debut she attracted the attention of critics for her research along the lines of a subtle and disenchanted intellectual game, developed among the weaves work that is multifaceted in terms of choice of language and of the various media utilized. She moved from drawing to video, from installation to photography and sculpture. Eva Marisaldi sets out each time from the environmental datum in order to construct a path structured on the physical and/or linguistic plane, building up exhibitions in which the artist seems to want to accompany spectators in observation of the work, suggesting choices or contrarily limiting them with obstacles. In this way the theme of the ways in which power operates, the dichotomy of freedom and obligation, the ineluctability of the choice and analysis of social and civic repercussions which all this involves, are transposed from the content plane to the formal plane of the work. With the evolution of her artistic research, Eva Marisaldi has passed on to populating her environments with characters who are no longer solely spectators but her own creations, witnesses of a blocked gestuality and deluded volitions. Though deprived of enchantment, the works of Eva Marisaldi bear witness to an artistic gesture that triggers romanticism, not of a sentimentalist drift but of those forms of constructive cynicism that can make us look at the real without taking it for granted.

Some of the exhibitions she took part in are: Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, IT (2020); Kunsthalle, Wien, AT; Estorick Collection, London, GB (2019); MAMBO, Bologna, IT (2018); Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, Kosovo, XK (2014); Fondazione Sandretto, Turin, IT (2013); MIMA, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, UK (2012); Triennale di Milano, IT (2006); Galerie Meert – Rihoux, Bruxelles, BE (2005); Art unlimited, Athens, GR; Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, IT (2004).

Vezzoli works with different media, including embroidery and video. His embroidered projects focus on pop icons and his love of film. These projects include alternate portraits of movie stars working for famous directors. He focuses primarily on creating film and video art. His projects often involve creating real or imagined television productions, such as pilot episodes of television series that will never be broadcast or trailers for films that will never be shot. In his work, Francesco Vezzoli explores the power of contemporary cultural media and the ambiguity and instability of what constitutes truth. His work includes satirical trailers for films that will never be produced, such as the remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (2005), an advertising campaign for a fictitious perfume, and elaborate site specific performances with superstars. In a 2010 series, Vezzoli recreates images of 15th- and 16th-century paintings of the Madonna and Child, replaced by supermodels such as Claudia Schiffer, and affixes large tears, makeup, and tattoos to their faces using his technique.

He has recently exhibited in solo and group shows such as: Fondazione Prada, Milan (2005); Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA (2006); Whitney Biennial, New York (2006); Gagosian Gallery, Rome, Italy (2009); SFMoMA, San Francisco, New York (2011); MAXXI, Rome, Italy (2013); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2014); OCA Museum, Sao Paulo (2016); Fondazione Prada, Milan (2017); Collection Lambert, Avignon, France (2019); Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy (2021).

Luca Pancrazzi (Figline Valdarno, 1961) lives and works between Milan and Finland. After studying in Florence he travelled to the United States, where he work at Jo Watanabe studio for the realization of graphics and wall drawings of Sol Lewitt, then in Rome he worked at Alighiero Boetti’s studio. From the 90’s his research is based on the analisis of artistic medium, its ramifications, the creative possibilities of error and the composite use of techniques and materials. Metropolitan space and surroundings, in their continuity with human gaze that defines them, are Pancrazzi’s most used themes. The artist works with painting, drawing, photography, video, installation, sculpture, performance, editorial projects.

Among his projects: Importé d’Italie (1982), ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (1993), De-ABC (2002), from 2010 Madeinfilandia and from 2015 Spazio C.O.S.M.O. in Milan.

He started exposing his work in 1996, then he was invited at international exhibitions like Venice Biennial (1997), New Dehli Triennial (1997), Biennal of Cetinje (1997), Vilnius Triennial (2000), Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion (1998), Biennal of Valencia (2001), Moscow Biennal of Contemporary Art (2007), Quadriennale in Rome (2008). His work was presented in many public spaces such as: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (1999), Galleria Civica of Modena (1999), Museo Marino Marini (2000), Palazzo delle Papesse (2001), Museo Revoltella (2001), Galerie Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau (2001), GAMEC (2001), Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano (2002), Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (2002), Zentrum Fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (2003), PAC (2004), MAN (2004), MART Trento and Rovereto (2005), MAMbo (2006), Macro (2007), Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts (2007), Fondazione Pomodoro (2010), Museo per Bambini in Siena (2010), Palazzo Te (2016).

Luca Vitone (Genoa, 1964) is a visual artist based in Berlin. His artwork began in the second half of the 80’s. It focuses on the idea of the place, inviting us to recognize something we already know, defying the conventions of mutable, faded memory that characterize the present. His work explores the way places are identified through cultural production: art, cartography, music, cuisine, political associations, ethnic minorities. Vitone bridges the gap between the sense of loss of place characteristic of the postmodern and the ways in which feelings of belonging arise in the intersection of personal and collective memory. He reconstructs and invents forgotten paths to reconfigurate his own personal geography. The work of Luca Vitone has been shown in public and private space both in Italy and abroad. Since 2006 he has been teaching at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan.

His works have been exposed in many important institutions in Italy and abroad among: Openspace, Milan; Accademia di Francia; Villa Medici, Rome; OK-Centrum, Linz; PS1, New York; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; PAC, Milan; Casino Luxemburg; Lenbachaus Kunstbau, Munich; National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow; 2° Biennale de Valencia; 50° Venice Biennial; ARC Musée d’Arte Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Villa Arson, Nice; GNAM, Rome; MART, Rovereto; 8° Sharjah Biennial; GAMeC, Bergamo; Museion, Bolzano; 4° Tirana Biennal; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; CAPC, Bordeaux; BOZAR, Bruxelles; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow; Weserburg Museum, Brema; MAXXI, Rome.

Mario Dellavedova (Legnano, Milan, 1958) lives and works in Taxco, Mexico. His style is not easily identifiable, since it is intentionally ‘deconstructed’ in favor of multiple ways of reading his work. His oeuvre encompasses diverse fields, from painting to sculpture, from installation to other media, through objects, materials, and languages from past as well as contemporary cultures. The elements are decomposed and recomposed, reset and reworked so that they acquire a logical meaning or a simple and obvious justification at first sight, not so obvious, especially if combined with one another and not accumulated. The written word, often used by the artist, is removed from its cultural surroundings to be formalized through improbable objects, but which at the same time characterize its state, proposing to the observer a reflection on the role of the artist and on the language of art. The play of words, metaphor, and subtle irony lead back to a conceptual sphere that deliberately contrasts with the sometimes artisanal aspect of the manufactured products or artefacts, such as textiles and precious metals, and with the simplicity of their juxtaposition.

Dellavedova’s work has been exhibited in museums and international exhibitions including: Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome; Venice Biennial; Art and Media Show, Cologne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Museo de las Artes Guadalajara, Mexico; P.S.1, New York; 1st Biennale of Valencia.

Some of the most recent exhibitions he took part in include: Mazzoli, Project space Düsseldorf (2018); Galleria Zero, Milan, Italy (2016); Sperone Westwater, New York, USA (2015); Suzi Shammah Gallery, Milan, Italy (2011); MACRO, Rome, Italy (2011); Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, Modena, Italy (2009); Assab One, Milan, Italy (2007); The Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland (2001).

Maurizio Cattelan (Padua, 1960) lives and works in New York, USA. He is one of the most popular as well as controversial artists on the contemporary art scene. Taking freely from the real world of people and objects, his works are an irreverent operation aimed at both art and institutions. His playful and provocative use of materials, objects, and gestures set in challenging contexts forces commentary and engagement. Cattelan first achieved notoriety on an international scale in New York with La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour), a wax statue of Pope John Paul II hit by a meteorite, which was originally exhibited in 1999 at Kunsthalle Basel. Since 2010, L.O.V.E., a public art intervention permanently installed in Piazza Affari, Milan, triggered the reappropriation by citizens of a square otherwise forgotten. In that same year, Cattelan started a biannual, picture-based publication, TOILETPAPER, co-created with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. In 2011, he provoked a lively debate with an installation of two thousand stuffed pigeons, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale. That same year, Maurizio Cattelan was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, in which all his works were suspended from the ceiling.

From September 2016 and for one year long, in the same museum’s restroom, he replaced the toilet with a fully functional replica cast in 18-karat gold, making it available to the public. Later that year, he was invited to exhibit a selection of his most important works at the Monnaie de Paris, resulting in a retrospective titled after one of his works, Not Afraid of Love. In 2018 he curated The Artist Is Present at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, a group show born with the idea of questioning the most hallowed principles of art in the modern era: originality, intention and expression.
In late 2019, a solo exhibition of his major works, Victory is Not an Option, took place at at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire: on the night of the opening, America, the fully-functioning toilet made of 18-karat gold already exhibited at the Guggenheim, was stolen from the exhibition venue by unknown thefts. In December 2019, Cattelan’s new work, Comedian, a banana duct-taped to the gallery’s booth wall, debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach fair, stimulating debates and discussions among audiences of all types around the world about the nature and the value of art.
In 2021, a solo exhibition is dedicated to the artist at the Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milano (Italy), as well as a major exhibition entitled “The Last Judgment” at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (China).

Some of his most recent solo and group exhibitions include: SWCAC – Sea World Culture and Arts Center -, Shenzhen, China (2022); Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano, Italy (2021);  Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Centre Pompidou, Metz, France; Luxembourg + Co, London, UK (2021); Massimo De Carlo, London, UK (2020); Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, United Kingdom (2019);  Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France (2018); Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2016); Foundation Beyeler, Switzerland (2013); Grand Palais, Paris, France; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany; Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy; Sheffield Cathedral, Sheffield, UK (2015); Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland (2012);  Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011).

Nunzio Di Stefano (Cagnano Amiterno, 1954) lives and works between Rome and Turin. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and he graduated in the course of Toti Scialoja. His first exhibition was at Galleria Spatia in Bolzano in 1981. In 1985 he exposed in Usa for the first time, at Annina Nosei gallery in New York. From that moment he attracted the interest of collectors and his works started being appreciated internationally. In 1986 at L’Attico in Rome he presented his first works made of wood and lead. Some of them were exposed at the XLII Venice Biennial, where he won the “Premio 2000” award as best young artist. Some of the most important national and international exhibitions are:, Nouvelle Biennale de Paris 1985; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Nice, Castello Colonna in Genazzano, Galleria Comunale in Bologna;, Aspekte der Italienischen Kunst, 1986; XI Quadriennale in Rome 1996; VI Sydney Biennal 1989; Los Nuevos Romanos, Santiago de Compostela and Madrid; Prospekt ‘89, Frankfurt; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Wien, 1991; III Istanbul Biennale 1992.

In 1994 he exposed in Kodama Gallery in Osaka, Japan, with a solo show. In 1997 Nunzio exposed for the first time his bronze works at the Galerie Alice Pauli in Lausanne. In 2005 he had a solo show at Galleria dello Scudo in Verona, curated by  Lea Vergine, where he presented a series of installations in combusted wood that created alienating spaces. He exposed at MACRO, Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrado; Museum Biedermann in Donaueschingen, Germany; Museo Riso in Palermo; Forte di Belvedere and Palazzo Marino Marini in Florence; Galleria Casamadre in Naples. In 2019 he was invited by Anna-Maria Ehrmann-Schindlbeck at the Galerie der Stadt in Tuttlingen (Germany) for a solo show.

Simone Berti (Adria sul Po, 1966) is an italian artist who lives and works between Berlin and Milan. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera (Milan) and in the 90’s he lived together with other artists like Stefania Galegati, Sarah Ciriacì. Together they worked as a group for some years. He exposed his works in many important national and international institutions. He lived in New York for some years and in 2008 he moved to Berlin. Berti è un pittore, fotografo, designer, scultore e performer.

Some of his recent shows include: Galleria Astuni, Bologna, IT (2010); 53rd Venice Biennial, IT (2009); Micamoca Berlin, DE; Galleria Vistamare, Pescara IT (2008); Galleria Continua, Beijing, CN (2006); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo , Turin, IT (2005); Istanbul Biennial, TR (2001); Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, IT (2000).

Stefano Arienti (Asola, 1961) lives and works in Milan. He graduated in Agriculture in Milan, then gained his artistic-cultural training attending Corrado Levi’s lessons at the Polytechnic, in a lively climate of seminars that included artists such as Richard Long, Daniel Buren, and Tony Cragg. His artistic journey began in the Eighties when, among his first works, he presented folded papers that exploited very simple and repetitive means and procedures which recalled everyday dynamics. In the subsequent decade, the artist works often using extra-pictorial materials, using reproductions of pictures by masters of the past or trite supermarket posters, covering them with malleable material such as plasticine or silicone. Arienti works are created by setting out from a conceptual gesture executed on an object which is thus taken out of its sphere of use and acquires an aura. In recent years Arienti has begun to create installation works and exhibitions, shifting analysis from the pure objective datum to the environmental dimension.His research proceeds along with guidelines of a relationship with popular tradition, which has always been one of his characteristics, but is completed by a backward glance at his own art and his own technical achievements, questioning himself on the capacity of art in a strict sense to influence culture in a broad sense.

He participated in many solo and group shows. The most recent ones include: CasaMadre Arte Contemporanea, Napoli (2020); Francesco Pantaleone, Palermo (2019); Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia (2010); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2007); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Lehmann Maupin, New York (2005); greengrassi, London;
MAXXI, Rome, (2004); Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, Turin (2001).

Stella Scala (Naples, 1964) and Simeone Crispino (Naples, 1962) have been working together as a collaborative duo under the name of Vedovamazzei since 1991. They live and work in Milan. They have never set  limits to the artistic medium with whom they work, always experimenting new things.

Among the most recent solo and collective exhibitions: Archivio storico Magnani di Pescia, Pistoia, Tuscany, IT (2023); Magazzino d’arte moderna, Rome, IT (2021); Piazza Alighiero Boetti, Rome, IT (2020); BienNoLo, Milan, IT (2019); Galleria De Foscherari, Bologna, IT (2018); Maxxi Museum, Rome, IT (2014); Galeria Fucares, Madrid, Spain (2012); Dublin Contemporary 2011, Dublin, Ireland (2011); M.A.D.R.E Museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples, IT (2006).