ARCANGELO

Arcangelo was born in Avellino in 1956. In 1976 heenrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, graduatingin 1980. In 1981 he moved to Milan, where he still livesand works.In the 1980s he produced his first series of works entitledTerra mia, which he showed in the joint exhibitionPerspective, staged at Art Basel. This was followed bysolo exhibitions at the Galerie Tanit in Munich and theBuchmann Galerie in Basel and by the joint exhibitionNuovi Argomenti at the PAC in Milan. He went on to holdsolo exhibitions at the Galerie Janine Mautsch in Cologne,Galerie Harald Behm in Hamburg and Galerie Klaus Lüpkein Frankfurt. He started work on the sculptures entitledMontagne Sante. Then came a new solo exhibition, VillaWaldberta, staged at the Galerie Tanit, Munich, wherehe was a guest of the City. This was followed by the onesat the Galleri Engström in Stockholm, the Galerie PierreHuber in Geneva and the inaugural exhibition at the StudioGuenzani in Milan. He also took part in the 11th RomeQuadriennale, Prospect ’86 at the Kunstverein und SchirnKunsthalle in Frankfurt and the joint exhibition Dopoil concettuale at the Museo Provinciale d’Arte in Trento.In 1987 he showed at the PAC in Milan, the Galerie derStadt in Esslingen, the Galerie Maeght-Lelong in Paris, andthe Edward Totah Gallery in London, where Arcangelo alsoopened a studio. Towards the end of the 1980s he madethe sculptures he called Altari and between 1989 and 1990he commenced a series of paintings of the Pianeti.In 1990, after a trip to Africa, he created the works of theLobi-Dogon cycle, shown at the Kunstverein in Bonn in1991. In 1992 he opened a solo exhibition at the Muséed’Art Moderne, Réfectoire des Jacobins, Toulouse. In 1993he showed at the Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Fermedu Buisson in Marne-la-Vallée, the Galerie Municipale d’Art Contemporain at Saint-Priest and the Kodama Gallery inOsaka, Japan. In 1994 he exhibited the works of the Stanzeseries at the OTTO Gallery in Bologna and returned to theTanit in Munich, and then held a show at Alice Pauli in Lausanne. Between 1993 and 1994 he showed in Japan, atthe Fukuyama Museum of Art, and in France, at Toulouse’sMusée d’Art Moderne.In 1995–96 he organized two Leonkart shows atthe CSOA Leoncavallo in Milan, inviting artists like RicardoBrey, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Michel Frère, George Lappas,Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Jaume Plensa to exhibit.In 1996 he presented the series of wax sculptures Naviat the Galerie Di Meo in Paris and the Galleria Gentiliin Florence, and then at the Galleria Continua in SanGimignano. During the summer he produced the cycleof paintings called Misteri, works that reflected the deepreligious feelings of Southern Italy. Between 1996 and1998 he showed again at the Galerie Tanit in Munichand at the OTTO Gallery in Bologna, the Janine Mautschin Cologne, and the Bernard Cats in Brussels. The CivicaRaccolta del Disegno in Salò devoted a solo exhibition tohim and he also took part in the Ultime generazioni showat the 12th Rome Quadriennale. The same year Arcangelostarted the small series of erotic works entitled VersoOriente and subsequently showed his terracotta Anforeon the prestigious premises of the Caffè Florian in Venice.In 2000 he held Tappeti persiani, sarcofago, anfore, hisfirst solo exhibition at Lorenzelli Arte in Milan. The summerof 2001 saw the birth of the works Feticci and Sanniti, acycle devoted entirely to Samnium, as the region of hisbirth was known in ancient times. He produced the Orti,ceramic sculptures made at the Bottega Gatti in Faenza,and showed the works called Trofei di caccia at theGalerie Tanit in Munich. The first monograph on his work,Arcangelo, was published in 2003 (Perugia: Quattroemme)and he subsequently designed a series of Monotypes,shown in Italy and Germany. In 2004 he held another soloexhibition at Lorenzelli Arte, Milan, entitled Lunga nottedi stelle sannite and realized the project Terra dei Sannitiin the spaces of the Fondazione Volume! in Rome. In thesame period he brought out a fine volume of engravingsaccompanied by fourteen poems by Alda Merini (Milan:Edizioni Lo Sciamano). In 2005, he produced Le mie case,a group of works dedicated to the recently visited Creteand Athens, and in 2006 a new series entitled I Vedentithat he showed at the Galerie Forsblom in Helsinki.He then took part in the exhibition Per esempio, Artecontemporanea italiana dalla Collezione Unicredit, heldat the MART in Rovereto, and published the secondmonograph, Arcangelo. Opere 1983-2007 (Bologna:Damiani).His interest in Sub-Saharan Africa was revived in 2007 withthe works of the Kenya Masai cycle. In 2009 he staged soloexhibitions in the spaces of Marcorossi artecontemporaneain Verona and Pietrasanta. In October 2009 he createdworks on paper and canvas devoted to the tribal worldof Ségou, which he showed in 2010 in the spaces of theFondazione Volume! in Rome and at Lorenzelli Arte inMilan. In 2011 he staged a solo exhibition in the churchof the Immacolata at Aragonese Castle on Ischia. In January2012 he created a group of works entitled Beirut that heshowed at the Espace Kettaneh-Kunigk (Tanit) in Beirut,Lebanon. In the summer of 2012 he started on a set ofworks entitled Ex voto, which would be followed by theerotic ones of the Kamasutra series, and in the summerof 2014 by works dedicated to the Hirpini, an ancientSamnite tribe. The same year he commenced a seriesof ceramic works entitled Case degli Irpini, that he madeat the Officine Saffi workshop in Milan and would showat the gallery of the same name in 2015. Between 2015and 2016 he held solo exhibitions at the Galleria FrancescoClivio in Milan, PoliArt in Rovereto, and Marcorossiartecontemporanea at Pietrasanta. He participated in thejoint exhibition Passaggi with the Fondazione Volume!at the MAMC (Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain)in Saint-Étienne, France, and received the 56th Bugatti-Segantini International Award for Lifetime Achievement.Numerous critics have written about his work, includingLuca Massimo Barbero, Helmut Friedel, Maria Luisa Frisa,Walter Guadagnini, Flaminio Gualdoni, Giovanni Iovine,Andrea Jahn, Petra Joos, Gian Ruggero Manzoni, MarcoMeneguzzo, Marilena Pasquali, Jérôme Picon, AnneliePohlen, Ivan Quaroni, Davide Sarchioni, Herbert Schneidler,Danilo Eccher, and Emma Zanella.