Gian Marco Montesano

His first works, made in the early seventies, are enlarged reproductions of Madonna and sacred images, ironically revisited in a postmodern key, according to the tradition of widespread popular culture, and covered with conceptual and theoretical meanings. At the end of the eighties, the artist was part of th e Medialismo movement, the current of pictorial revival, characterized by a strong attention to the media and photography, where he was a precursor. Today the artist is known above all for his realist paintings that tell the popular culture of Europe of the last century, from the Second World War, to the economic boom, passing through Hollywood and neorealist cinema, up to political protest and the great contemporary world crises. Alongside these, however, the artist also uses apparently neutral images of landscapes, painted on rural or mountain backgrounds, children and teenager’s intent on games and other innocent occupations, like a long series of images taken from one of our albums of collective memories.

Gian Marco Montesano was born in Turin in 1949, he lives and works between Paris, Trento and Bologna. He is present in the art scene since the seventies, he was invited to the Venice Biennale in 2009 in the Italian Pavilion. He has held exhibitions in important international public and private spaces. A big public exhibition was dedicated to him in 2003 in Turin, curated by Luca Beatrice and Guido Curto, promoted by the Region. Intellectuals and critics have written about him, from Jean Baudrillard to Toni Negri to A chille Bonito Oliva. Besides being an established painter, Montesano is a passionate theater director. His Company Florian, based in Pescara, has presented shows in Paris, Hungary and throughout Italy .