Andrea Mastrovito is an italian multi-media artist (born 1978 in Bergamo) now New York-based.
He received his MFA in 2001 from Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo. He won the New York Prize, awarded by Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007 and the Moroso Prize in 2012. He installed solo shows in private galleries in Milan, Florence, Paris, Geneva, Brussels, New York and in museums and center for contemporary art in Milan, Bergamo, Fort Lauderdale, Toulouse, Rome, Florence, Montélimar and Lacoux.
In 2011 he's been the first artist to have a solo show at Museo del Novecento in Milan.
His works have also been included in many public exhibition all across Europe and United States - MAXXI National Museum of the 21st century and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Pecci, Prato; MART, Rovereto; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; B.P.S. 22, Charleroi, Belgium; M.A.D., New York.
He held public talks at Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Naba, Accademia di Brera, Museo Pecci and Spazio Oberdan in Milan, Palazzo Forti in Verona, American Academy in Rome, Museum Nitsch in Naples, Pavillon Blanc in Colomiers, Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, ISCP and Italian Academy at Columbia University in New York.
He's been commissioned for many public installations and his works have been acquired by dozens of public and private collections in Italy, Europe and U.S.A.
WORKS
Mastrovito's work, by exploring a space somewhere in between the reinvention of the artist and the reinvention of drawing in a continuous dialogue with the cycle of life and in open confrontation with audiences and communities, is characterized by its ongoing plastic evolution – a defining trait of a significant portion of contemporary Italian art, from Alighiero Boetti to Stefano Arienti.
Mastrovito first came to prominence within the Italian art scene in the early 2000s, thanks to his collages on canvas, inspired by linocut printing techniques, in which he overlapped hundreds of layers of cut-out and painted silhouettes. In 2005 his earliest environmental installations, presented by Analix Forever in Geneve, hinted at a new direction in his work, one that moved toward an expanded perspective that tries to incorporate the viewers themselves in the work of art.
In 2009, he produced his first Enciclopedia dei fiori da Giardino, in which the concepts of assemblage and collage took on a markedly spatial quality. This set the stage for a later work, The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, first presented in 2010 at Governors Island (New York): thousands of pages taken from volumes of zoology and botany were cut out and displayed three-dimensionally, like in a pop-up book. The exhibition space is invaded and the distance between viewer and work of art is eliminated, and the cycle of life takes the center stage of the artist's efforts.
In the following years, Mastrovito's work became more and more diverse: entire environments or events (galleries, libraries, apartments, and even concerts and movies) are drawn or photocopied; sport stadium choreographed card stunts are brought to the museum, or vice versa, his paintings are brought to sport stadiums (a 2000-square-foot choreography made with the hooligans of Italian football club Atalanta B.C.); he created now famous carvings on the walls of historic buildings; he produced large installations with video-animations or electric fans blowing on loose sheets of paper (The Disparates, for example, installed in New York in september 2015 - www.thedisparates.com)
In November 2013 he published Manabile per Giovani Artisti, a volume distributed throughout Italy as a supplement of Artribune magazine.
In 2014, he introduced the concept of environmental frottage in his personal exhibition at Bergamo's GAMeC. In the same year he completed the glass wall decorations for the new San Giovanni XXIII church, still in Bergamo, where, together with Studio Reduzzi, he conceived a new technique for working on glass.
In May of the same year, he created a 1000 foot ornament, Kickstarting! by having over a hundred kids from the Bushwick neighborhood (New York) kick soccer balls against the walls of a courtyard.
At the moment he is working on an epic animated film over 70 minutes long...
He received his MFA in 2001 from Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo. He won the New York Prize, awarded by Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007 and the Moroso Prize in 2012. He installed solo shows in private galleries in Milan, Florence, Paris, Geneva, Brussels, New York and in museums and center for contemporary art in Milan, Bergamo, Fort Lauderdale, Toulouse, Rome, Florence, Montélimar and Lacoux.
In 2011 he's been the first artist to have a solo show at Museo del Novecento in Milan.
His works have also been included in many public exhibition all across Europe and United States - MAXXI National Museum of the 21st century and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Pecci, Prato; MART, Rovereto; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; B.P.S. 22, Charleroi, Belgium; M.A.D., New York.
He held public talks at Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Naba, Accademia di Brera, Museo Pecci and Spazio Oberdan in Milan, Palazzo Forti in Verona, American Academy in Rome, Museum Nitsch in Naples, Pavillon Blanc in Colomiers, Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, ISCP and Italian Academy at Columbia University in New York.
He's been commissioned for many public installations and his works have been acquired by dozens of public and private collections in Italy, Europe and U.S.A.
WORKS
Mastrovito's work, by exploring a space somewhere in between the reinvention of the artist and the reinvention of drawing in a continuous dialogue with the cycle of life and in open confrontation with audiences and communities, is characterized by its ongoing plastic evolution – a defining trait of a significant portion of contemporary Italian art, from Alighiero Boetti to Stefano Arienti.
Mastrovito first came to prominence within the Italian art scene in the early 2000s, thanks to his collages on canvas, inspired by linocut printing techniques, in which he overlapped hundreds of layers of cut-out and painted silhouettes. In 2005 his earliest environmental installations, presented by Analix Forever in Geneve, hinted at a new direction in his work, one that moved toward an expanded perspective that tries to incorporate the viewers themselves in the work of art.
In 2009, he produced his first Enciclopedia dei fiori da Giardino, in which the concepts of assemblage and collage took on a markedly spatial quality. This set the stage for a later work, The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, first presented in 2010 at Governors Island (New York): thousands of pages taken from volumes of zoology and botany were cut out and displayed three-dimensionally, like in a pop-up book. The exhibition space is invaded and the distance between viewer and work of art is eliminated, and the cycle of life takes the center stage of the artist's efforts.
In the following years, Mastrovito's work became more and more diverse: entire environments or events (galleries, libraries, apartments, and even concerts and movies) are drawn or photocopied; sport stadium choreographed card stunts are brought to the museum, or vice versa, his paintings are brought to sport stadiums (a 2000-square-foot choreography made with the hooligans of Italian football club Atalanta B.C.); he created now famous carvings on the walls of historic buildings; he produced large installations with video-animations or electric fans blowing on loose sheets of paper (The Disparates, for example, installed in New York in september 2015 - www.thedisparates.com)
In November 2013 he published Manabile per Giovani Artisti, a volume distributed throughout Italy as a supplement of Artribune magazine.
In 2014, he introduced the concept of environmental frottage in his personal exhibition at Bergamo's GAMeC. In the same year he completed the glass wall decorations for the new San Giovanni XXIII church, still in Bergamo, where, together with Studio Reduzzi, he conceived a new technique for working on glass.
In May of the same year, he created a 1000 foot ornament, Kickstarting! by having over a hundred kids from the Bushwick neighborhood (New York) kick soccer balls against the walls of a courtyard.
At the moment he is working on an epic animated film over 70 minutes long...