Mario Cresci
“I have always thought that images are “signs” that convey choices and judgments about reality on the part of the author and with time they change in the eye of the beholder.
I prefer the ephemeral unconscious, the awareness of life and death as two inseparable elements, whereby images, photographs, are nothing more than the transformation of events that drag behind the passing moments of life.”
Born 1942 in Chiavari, Italy. Lives and works in Bergamo.
Mario Cresci is a leading figure in Italian photography belonging to an avant-garde generation, including Luigi Ghirri and Guido Guidi, who brought the medium into the realm of contemporary art.
Cresci attended the school of Industrial Design in Venice in the mid 1960s, and currently teaches at the ISIA University in Urbino. He has held solo exhibitions at major museums and institutions including MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Rome; GAM, Galleria d'Arte Moderna and CAMERA, Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Turin; GAMeC, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo.
His work was included in the recent REVERSING THE EYE, Arte Povera and Beyond 1960-75: Photography, Film, Video exhibition at Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Important publications include Matera. Images and Documents (1975), Measurements. Photography and Territory (1979) and Segni Migranti. Storia di grafica e fotografia (2019), winner of the Prix du Livre Historique, at Les Rencontres Arles in 2020.
I prefer the ephemeral unconscious, the awareness of life and death as two inseparable elements, whereby images, photographs, are nothing more than the transformation of events that drag behind the passing moments of life.”
Born 1942 in Chiavari, Italy. Lives and works in Bergamo.
Mario Cresci is a leading figure in Italian photography belonging to an avant-garde generation, including Luigi Ghirri and Guido Guidi, who brought the medium into the realm of contemporary art.
Cresci attended the school of Industrial Design in Venice in the mid 1960s, and currently teaches at the ISIA University in Urbino. He has held solo exhibitions at major museums and institutions including MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Rome; GAM, Galleria d'Arte Moderna and CAMERA, Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Turin; GAMeC, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo.
His work was included in the recent REVERSING THE EYE, Arte Povera and Beyond 1960-75: Photography, Film, Video exhibition at Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Important publications include Matera. Images and Documents (1975), Measurements. Photography and Territory (1979) and Segni Migranti. Storia di grafica e fotografia (2019), winner of the Prix du Livre Historique, at Les Rencontres Arles in 2020.
Website
mariocresci.it
Press
The Guardian: ‘Mario Cresci review: - mind bending tricks from an iconoclast’, Charlotte Jansen, 18 March 2025
Art Monthly No. 486: Review, ‘Mario Cresci Geometries / Epiphanies, Andrew Chesher, May 2025
Financial Times Magazine: ‘Gallery, Mario Cresci’, Josh Lustig, May 17 2025
The Brooklyn Rail: ‘Artseen, Mario Cresci: Geometries / Epiphanies’, Bartolomeo Sala, May 2025
mariocresci.it
Press
The Guardian: ‘Mario Cresci review: - mind bending tricks from an iconoclast’, Charlotte Jansen, 18 March 2025
Art Monthly No. 486: Review, ‘Mario Cresci Geometries / Epiphanies, Andrew Chesher, May 2025
Financial Times Magazine: ‘Gallery, Mario Cresci’, Josh Lustig, May 17 2025
The Brooklyn Rail: ‘Artseen, Mario Cresci: Geometries / Epiphanies’, Bartolomeo Sala, May 2025