Marcello Morandini

Marcello Morandini

“I have always inhabited this word (of geometry)
and it has always contributed a lot to the other world (of life)”

M. Morandini, 2017

Marcello Morandini (Mantua, 1940) attended the Brera School of Art in Milan, the city where he also worked as design assistant for a company and as a graphic designer for AG Fronzoni studio. In 1962 he produced his first drawings and in 1964 he created his first three-dimensional artworks, which were exhibited in his first solo exhibition curated by Germano Celant at Galleria del Deposito of Genoa in 1965. Between the mid-1960s and late-1970s, he participated in important international events including: IX Biennale of Sao Paulo in Brazil (1967), XXXIV Biennale of Venice (1968), “Nove Tendencije 4”, Zagreb (1969); Documenta VI of Kassel (1977). In 1979 the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum of Ludwigshafen inauguratec the first of three solo shows dedicated to him, the next two followed in 1994 and 2004. From the early-1980s he starts a series of long collaborations with different architecture firms, and creates construction and architectural projects in Italy and around the world. He is also in education: from 1995 to 1997 he was art and design teacher at the Summer Academy in Salzburg, from 1997 to 2001 he was a visiting professor at ECAL in Lausanne, in 2004 he was coordinator of the project “Vivere Venezia 3” at IUAV University in Venice. In the world of design, Morandini collaborates with Sawaya e Moroni, Cleto Munari, Baleri, Tecnodelta and in a privileged way with Rosenthal. In 2005 in Germany he participated in an important retrospective exhibition on art and design, at Europäisches Industriemuseum of Plößberg and at Museum Schloss of Fürstenberg. The new Museum Ritter of Waldenbuch opened to the public that same year, with his solo show. In 2008, in conjunction with the Biennale of Architecture, Museum Ca’ Pesaro of Venice inaugurated “MARCELLO MORANDINI. Arte, Architettura, Design”, that was to be integrated and exhibited the following year at Neues Museum of Nuremberg. In 2014, Kunstmuseum Bayreuth and Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna of Rome dedicated two solo shows to him. In 2017, his work was presented in a big exhibition at MA*GA in Gallarate, and the following years at Scuola Grande della Misericordia of Venice.

At the moment he is working on the Foundation Marcello Morandini, which was established in Varese in 2016, according to the artist’s wishes, and inaugurated in September 2021.