Loris Cecchini

This new monograph examines Italian artist Loris Cecchini's career, exploring his use of innovative materials to blur the lines between nature and artifice. Text in English and French.

This monograph edited by Ilaria Bernardi is the first comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of the Italian artist Loris Cecchini, from his debut in the mid-1990s to the present.

The publication coincides with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s first inclusion in an exhibition: in three group shows in 1995. The book reviews Cecchini’s solo and group exhibitions, providing information on awards, residencies and lectures, as well as extensive commentary on his most distinctive works.

Alternating between photography, sculpture, drawing, digital processing and environmental installations, Cecchini’s aim is to shape real space by means of innovative materials, focusing on how matter holds together and the aesthetic, architectural, organic, and structural processes associated with it. He has a particular interest in industrial materials such as rubber, resin and steel. His work explores the sense of the real, in a perspective suspended between the natural and the man-made that challenges the viewer’s perception.

This book reconstructs the trajectory of Cecchini's personal and creative life by interweaving biographical information, historical background and an ample selection of works, thus providing a unique contribution to the literature devoted to the artist.

Text in English and French

Loris Cecchini, born in 1969, currently lives and works in Milan. His work is displayed in various museums throughout the world, including Palais de Tokyo, in Paris; MoMA PS1, in New York; Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporanea, in Santiago de Compostela; Kunstverein, in Heidelberg; Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, in Prato; Ludwig Museum, in Cologne; PAC, in Milan; Palazzo Fortuny, in Venice; MART, in Rovereto; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, in Rome; Musée d’Art Contemporain, in Lyon; MOCA, in Shanghai. Loris Cecchini’s work has also featured in numerous solo international exhibitions, such as the 56th, 51st, and 49th Venice Biennales, the 6th and 9th Shanghai Biennales, the 15th and 13th Rome Quadriennales, the Taipei Biennale, the Valencia Biennale, and the 12th Carrara Biennale Internazionale di Scultura. He has also created several permanent and in situ installations in prestigious venues around the world.

Ilaria Bernardi holds a Ph.D. in art history and is a curator. She has worked with leading figures in the art world, including Germano Celant and, at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. She has organized exhibitions for major exhibition spaces in Italy and abroad. Ilaria Bernardi has also worked with public institutions and devised exhibitions for Italian cultural institutes in several cities around the world. She has published monographs, essays in exhibition catalogues and articles in art magazines, in which she focuses on Arte Povera artists and Italian art from the 1960s to the present, in general. She currently teaches at Milan’s IULM University and has run “Progetto Genesi. Art and Human Rights”, a traveling exhibition and educational project developed by Associazione Genesi, since 2021.