Maurizio Donzelli 

b. 1958, Brescia, Italy

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Maurizio Donzelli’s work explores the interaction between a viewer and an artwork, particularly in regard to the crystalline geometry of a glassy surface and the distancing effect this evokes, even as its sheen allures. Donzelli uses curvilinear forms, drawn from nature, in order to suggest a natural and fecund power. Simultaneously, these forms often have hard edges and crystalline structures that blur at the margins and break down the borders between each geometric shape. This breakdown suggests an alternate form of perception, creating a sense of uneasy beauty.

 

Donzelli’s work has been exhibited in a number of solo shows throughout Italy, including at Eduardo Secci Contemporary Gallery in Florence, Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps in Rome, Giacomo Guidi Gallery in Rome, and Palazzo Fortuny in Venice. He has also contributed to group exhibitions at galleries and institutions such as United States Embassy in Rome, Padiglione Esprit Nouveau Bologna, Italy, Galleria Gagliardi Art System in Turin, and Galleria Della Biennale Malindi in Kenya.

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The poetic elements in Maurizio Donzelli’s work have always condensed around several focal points of the operation that is making art: the concept of drawing, the revelation of the image, the ineluctability of the role played by the observer in defining the work, the relationships between light and colour.

Over the years, Donzelli has begun with the drawing as his primary intellectual and technical tool to approach various types of works, from watercolours to the Mirror series’ and to his tapestries series. His recent one-man shows Maurizio Donzelli a Palazzo Barbò (2013), curated by Angela Madesani, and Imenigma, at the Il Disegno gallery in Mantua (2013) have gathered together and united the iconographic themes of the artist’s enquiries.

In 2015, under the curatorship of New York critic Bartholomew F. Bland, Donzelli mounted the two exhibitions entitled Diramante at the Florence and Pietrasanta locations of the Galleria Eduardo SecciContemporary.

The fil rouge running through Diramante is indicative of how Donzelli’s most recent works have drawn artist into the centre of international debate and narrative in an art world which, after having for decades regarded the concept of ‘beauty’ with open scepticism if not suspicion, has now gradually begun to again embrace it.

The same year, with the exhibition entitled Ad Altemps at Rome’s Palazzo Altemps, Donzelli renewed his collaboration with Andrea Viliani and picked up the thread unravelling from the 2012 experience at the Museo Fortuny of Venice, where the museum spaces integrated, and interacted with, the artist’s works.

The two rooms chosen for the exhibition are emblematic. The first was the so-called Sala delle Grandi Dee, or Hall of the Goddesses, home to statues of Isis and Demeter and a bust of Artemis; the second, the room housing the celebrated Ludovisi Throne. In both, the element of mystery lent by the archaic myths of cultures far away in space and time drew the artist’s attention and sparked his interest.

Donzelli sets his images alongside pre-existing images in an attempt to accentuate the enchantment and the fascination generated by both – and to stimulate the public to read into the images and draw new analogies.

Alongside huge papers painted with spiralling motifs, for the first time the artist presented the cycle of paintings on silk entitled disegni molli, created expressly for Palazzo Altemps.

The large-scale installation-event was only the first date on a calendar of exhibitions scheduled to touch on the most important of Italy’s cities of history and art in 2016 and 2017 From.

In 2017 we find the artist involved in two important solo shows in London Etctera curated by Luca Cerizza (Cortesi gallery) and in Paris Visible / Invisible (galerie Italienne) curated by Francesco Poli.

Also in 2017 he still has two important exhibitions, the first at Palzzo Fortuny in Venice where once again he is invited to the exhibition Intuition by the couple Daniela Ferretti Axel Vervoortd where he exhibits an important polyptych entitled Six Breaths; then paired with the artist friend Aldo Grazzi exhibited in a personal double entitled Cosmic Gardens, at the Museum of Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. In 2018 he is among the two Italian artists invited to the Open-Source Shenzhen Biennale in China. Maurizio Donzelli taught Theory of Perception and Psychology of Color for seven years at Brescia’s Accademia NABA. He has numerous publications to his credit, including Spettacolo di niente (Mazzotta, 2003), published on occasion of the exhibition of the same name, curated by Luigi Ficacci, at the Calcografia Nazionale in Rome; Lo Sguardo Del Disegnatore (Edizioni l’Obliquo, 2003); Metamorfosi (Mousse Publishing, 2012); Maurizio Donzelli (Edizioni Shin, 2014); La Linea Del Tutto curated by Luca Cerizza (Mousse Publishing, 2016) for the exhibitions in Lugano (Ch) and London.

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Solo Exhibitions

 

2020

Thresholds, a cura di Alberto Zanchetta e Ilaria Bignotti, Museo MAC Lissone (Mi).

Thresholds, a cura di Ilaria Bignotti, Cortesi Gallery Lugano, CH

 

2019

Miroirs et Talismans, a cura di Daniela Ferretti, Galerie Italienne, Parigi.

 

2018

Diorama, in Open Source First Shenzhen Biennale, Luohu Art Museum, a cura di Janet Fong e Zehui Tang, Shenzhen, China, catalogo.

 

2017

Giardini Cosmici, Maurizio Donzelli e Aldo Grazzi, a cura di Peter Assmann e Renata Casarin, Palazzo Ducale, Mantova, catalogo.

Visible / Invisible, a cura di Francesco Poli, Galerie Italienne, Parigi

Etcetera, a cura di Luca Cerizza, Cortesi Gallery London, catalogo.

 

2016

La Linea Del Tutto, a cura di Luca Cerizza, Cortesi Gallery Lugano, catalogo.

Invisibile-No, a cura di Clarissa Tempestini, galleria Marignana Venezia, catalogo.

 

2015

Diramante, a cura di Bartholomew F. Bland, galleria Secci Firenze, catalogo.

Diramante, a cura di Bartholomew F. Bland, galleria Secci, Pietrasanta (Lu), catalogo.

Ad Altemps, a cura di Andrea Viliani, Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps, Roma, catalogo.

Drawings, galleria Giacomo Guidi, Roma.

 

2014

Imenigma, a cura di Alberto Dambruoso, galleria Giacomo Guidi, Roma, catalogo.

 

2013

Imenigma, galleria Il Disegno, Palazzo Beccaguti Cavriani, Mantova

Maurizio Donzelli Palazzo Barbò, a cura di Angela Madesani, Torre Pallavicina, (Bg) catalogo.

 

2012

Metamorfosi, a cura di Andrea Viliani, Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia, catalogo.

 

2010

Doppia Personale: Maurizio Donzelli e Antonio Marchetti Lamera, a cura di Alberto Dambruoso, Fondazione Villa Rufolo, Ravello (Sa), catalogo.

 

2009

La Natura Delle Cose, a cura di Francesco Poli, Galleria Caterina Tognon, Venezia.

 

2007

Mirrors, galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, catalogo.

 

2006

Mirror, 41Artecontemporanea, Torino, catalogo.

 

2005

Disegni del Quasi, Iride spazio contemporaneo,  Deruta (Pg)  catalogo

On the Verge of Becoming, a cura di Annette Dixon, Galleria Bullseye, Portland Oregon, USA, catalogo.

 

2004

Spettacolo di Niente, Caterina Tognon Arte Contemporanea, Bergamo.

Macchina dei Disegni, Galleria Goethe2, presso vivai Shullian, Bolzano, catalogo.

Spettacolo di Niente, Galleria Goethe2, Bolzano.

Macchina dei Disegni, Galleria Bullseye, Portland Or, USA, catalogo.

Il Contorno delle Cose, rassegna la notte dei musei; a cura di Paola Tognon, Gamec Bergamo.

 

2003

Lo Spettacolo di Niente, a cura di Luigi Ficacci, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, Roma. Catalogo.

Orfeo/Orpheus; Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland Or, USA.

 

2002

Macchina dei Disegni, 41 Artecontemporanea,  Torino, catalogo.

Macchina dei Disegni, Galleria  Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento,

rassegna il confine delle parole, Biblioteca Civica .

 

2001

Macchina dei Disegni, Massimo Minini, Brescia, catalogo.

Macchina dei Disegni, Nuova Icona, Venezia, catalogo.

 

2000

Macchina dei Disegni, Biagiotti Arte Contemporanea, Firenze, catalogo.

Macchina dei Disegni, Neon, Bologna, catalogo.

 

1999

1 +1 alle 3 = 2; con Piero Almeoni, galleria Kinter Remshalden-Gerastetten, Stoccarda .

 

1998

Un amico preso a prestito; con Piero Almeoni, galleria  Neon, Bologna, catalogo.

I miei vetri da Luciano; Colantonio-arti del nostro secolo, Brescia.

 

1997

Overlook Hotel; Primo Piano, a cura di Roberto Dolzanelli, Brescia.

 

1995

Mi son fatto lupo tra i cani; AAB, Brescia, catalogo.

 

1994

E il terzo giorno; con P. Almeoni, spazio l'Aura, Brescia.

Disegni; Care/of, Cusano Milanino, Mi.

Le Meraviglie d'Italia; Care/of, Cusano Milanino, Mi.

 

1993

O; galleria Marsilio Margiacchi, con Almeoni, Cirino, Marossi, Arezzo.

 

1992

Nomenclatura; galleria Bernard Steinmetz, Bonn.

Monsieur Téte; a cura di Tommaso Trini, galleria Massimo Minini, con Almeoni Cirino Marossi, Brescia, catalogo.

Catalogo; galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia.

 

1991

Uno al quadrato; con Almeoni, Cirino, Marossi, Care/of, Milano

Nautilus, lo stato delle cose; a cura di Tommaso Trini, con Almeoni, Cirino, Marossi, galleria Kinter Remshalden-Gerastetten, Stoccarda, catalogo.

 

1990

Nel suono di questo vento; galleria Tommaseo, Trieste, catalogo.

Veglia; Ufficio Tecnico di Orzinuovi, a cura di Mauro Panzera, con Almeoni, Cirino, Marossi, Orzinuovi Bs, catalogo.(Bs)

 

1988

Maurizio Donzelli; galleria d'Art Actuel, Liegi.

Maurizio Donzelli; galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia.