Mario Cresci

Mario Cresci

Mario Cresci (Chiavari, 1942) has created since the Sixties a complex body of work characterized by the freedom of his research, ranging from drawing to photography, installations, video and site-specific installations. He is among the first authors of his generation to apply the design culture and methodology to photography, combining it with an experimental research applied to visual languages, ​​and attributing to the use of the photographic medium an opposite value, in respect to its role of proof of the truthfulness of reality. Between 1964 and 1967 he applies the theories of design to photography through experiments on models of non-Euclidean geometry, partly anticipating Ugo Mulas 1972 Verifiche. In 1968, while in Rome, he joined the group of artists who work at Galleria l’Attico, together with Pascali, Mattiacci, Kounellis and Luca Patella. During the seventies, his experience and studies at the Corso Superiore di Industrial Design in Venice stand side by side with his works in the field of ethnic and anthropological researches in the south of Italy. In 1969 he made his first photo environment at the Galleria Il Diaframma in Milan, and in the early Seventies he associated and worked with Luciano Inga-Pin at his Galleria Il Diagramma, Milan, where he exhibited in the historical show Campo Dieci. From 1991 to 2000 he directed the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo. In 1996 he realised Opus Gypsicum, a large installation at the Teatro Sociale di Bergamo with the plaster casts of the Accademia Carrara. In those years Cresci collaborates with the Sunday insert of the newspaper "Il Sole 24 Ore". Among the most important moments of his activity stand his participation at the Venice Biennale in 1971, 1979, 1993 with Muri di carta, fotografia e paesaggio and Viaggio in Italia in 2013. In 2004 there is the anthological exhibition The houses of photography at GAM, Turin. From 2010 to 2012 he carries out the project Forse Fotografia: attraverso l'arte, atraverso la traccia, attraverso l'umano inside the museums of Bologna, Rome, Matera. In 2011 there is the personal site-specific exhibition Dentro le cose at Palazzo Pio in Carpi. His works are present in several collections of contemporary art and photography, and in the permanent collections of Italian and international museums.

Cresci, Mario