Cesare Pietroiusti
Cesare Pietroiusti (Rome, 1955) graduated in Medicine in 1979 with a thesis in Psychiatric Clinic. His studies inspired him to found, together with Sergio Lombardo, Anna Homberg and Domenico Nardone, the “Rivista di Psicologia dell’Arte” (“Journal of Art Psychology”), whose first issue was published in 1979. The journal was created as a scientific publication of the Centro Studi Jartrakor, a gallery and experimental space founded in Rome in 1977 around the artist Sergio Lombardo, as well as a platform for the dissemination of the “Eventualist Theory”, which forms the theoretical basis of the Centre’s activities. A few years later, Pietroiusti became part of the Gruppo di Piombino and, in 1996, invited to the XII Quadriennale in Rome, he expanded his invitation first to artist friends and collaborators, and then to anyone who wished to participate in the exhibition.
Between 1997 and 2001, he was one of the coordinators of the “Oreste” artist residencies in Paliano and Montescaglioso. This evolving laboratory, which developed over the years, involved nearly 300 artists and curators. In 1999, the “Oreste Project” was invited by Harald Szeemann to participate in “dAPERTutto” at the 48th Venice Biennale, presenting a series of meetings, performances, discussions, lectures and informal gatherings, with around 100 events involving more than 500 active participants. That same year, he received the Alinovi Prize. In 1997, he was one of the coordinators of the conference “How to explain to my mother that what I do is useful?” held at the Link Project in Bologna. He co-founded “Nomads & Residents” (New York, 2000), was a member of the Scientific Committee and co-curator of the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Ratti Foundation in Como (2006–2011). Between 2009 and 2016, he taught in the MFA programme at the Art Institute of Boston – Lesley University. Since 2004, he has been a professor of “Visual Arts Laboratory” at IUAV University of Venice and, since 2021, at NABA in Rome.
Since 2015, he has been co-founder and president of the Fondazione Lac o Le Mon in San Cesario di Lecce.
Since 1977, he has exhibited solo or with other artists in private and public spaces, both traditional and unconventional, in Italy and abroad. In recent years, his work has focused especially on the theme of exchange and the paradoxes that can arise in the folds of economic systems and structures. Starting in 2004, he has carried out various performances, including: irreversibly altering other people’s banknotes; freely distributing tens of thousands of individually made and signed drawings; selling stories; ingesting banknotes at the end of an auction and returning them to the rightful owner after defecation; opening shops where the items for sale are banknotes and the “currency” used to buy them is the buyer’s gaze; organising restaurants where, at the end of the meal, instead of paying, customers receive the amount listed on the menu; setting up exhibitions in which works are for sale not in exchange for money, but for ideas or proposals from visitors.
His retrospective “Un certo numero di cose 1955–2019”, curated by Lorenzo Balbi and held at MAMbo in Bologna (2019–2020), was the winner of the 4th edition of the Italian Council.
