Roberto Floreani
He was born in Venice in 1956. He graduated in 1980 from the University of Padua and, in the same year, he resides in New York. The following year he began the exhibition activity and, in 1985, he made his first solo show in Valdagno (1985, Palazzo Festari). In 1986 he won the first prize at the Triveneta Biennale for artists under thirty in Padua with the purchase prize of a work destined for the Civic Museums and the purchase prize at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice with
destination of the work to the Ca 'Pesaro Museum. In 1989 he created the Itineraries of Memory project at the Chisel Gallery in Genoa.
Starting from the early 90s, the artist's research acquires its current connotation as an ideal point of contact between a strongly European culture and a philosophy of the body linked to the East. On these themes he realizes the Water Dream project at the Gariboldi Gallery in Milan and at the Ulla Sommers Galerie in Düsseldorf (Wassertraum). In the three-year period 1990-1993 he made a series of solo shows in Germany (Dusseldorf, Ulla Sommers Galerie) and Sweden (Galerie G Elsingborg). In 1992 one of his works was acquired by the Pavilion of Contemporary Art (PAC) in Milan and destined for the Civic Collections of Palazzo Reale in Milan. In 1994 the La Casa e il Tempo project (in collaboration with the Galleria del Credito Valtellinese) was presented at the Civic Museums of Como, Ravenna and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb; two years later he created the project The Age of Knowledge for the Niccoli Gallery in Parma, curated by Demetrio Paparoni.
1997 saw the anthological exhibition at the Casa dei Carraresi in Treviso curated by Marco Goldin and Beatrice Buscaroli. The following year he realizes the Middle Kingdom project (Bolzano, Les Chances de l 'Art Gallery and Sudtiroler Kunstlerbund).
In 1999 alongside the anthology curated by Luca Massimo Barbero (Vicenza, Basilica Palladiana)
realizes the Vedute project (Milan, Antonio Colombo Gallery) and the Memory exhibition, with an unpublished contribution by Mary de Rachewiltz. This is followed by personal exhibitions at the San Marino Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery curated by Pietro Bellasi (2001), at the Nuova Artesegno Gallery in Udine (2002 and 2003), at the Ca 'La Ghironda Foundation, museum for modern art and contemporary of the Martani collection (2002), at the Galleria Planetario in Trieste (2003), at the Revoltella Museum in Trieste (2003).
In 2005 he was invited to participate in the XIV Quadrennial of Rome in the Fuori Tema section. In the same year, with the Selected works 2000-2005 exhibition, it brings together about twenty large-format works of the most significant of the last five years (Chiasso, Galleria Follini); the following year the anthology at Palazzo Pretorio di Cittadella relating to the period of activity 1998-2006 follows.
In 2007 he made his first solo show in Sicily (Catania, LIBRA Contemporary Art Gallery) while the anthological Selected Works 1997-2007 was brought to Mantua (Palazzo Ducale), Aschaffenburg (Kunstverein), Gelsenkirchen (Stadtmuseum) and Ljubljana (Mestna Galerija); in 2008 he set up a personal exhibition at the Forte Belevedere in Florence for the Open Art gallery in Prato.
In 2009 he was invited by the curators Luca Beatrice and Beatrice Buscaroli to participate in the 53rd edition of the Venice Biennale with a solo show in the Italian Pavilion and with the Western Aurora project where he reaffirms the centrality of the work as the bearer of a message of a spiritual nature.
In 2010 the personal La Casa del Mago (Bonelli Arte Contemporanea) focuses on the problem of multidisciplinary creativity; in the same year he created the first ceramics, exhibited in Albissola (Studio Balestrini), followed the following year by a second series.
2011 sees him involved in the great Alchemica project for the MAGA in Gallarate, curated by Emma Zanella and for the Abstract One exhibition at the invitation of the Zappettini Foundation in Chiavari curated by Riccardo Zelatore and at the Trento Festival of Economics by Giovanna Nicoletti. He is also invited by the MAG (Alto Garda Museum) of Arco to exhibit a selection of works from the last 10 years and realizes the Rome project for the Russo Gallery in Rome and the Russo :: Asso di Quadri in Milan.
The realization of exhibition projects and performances over the last fifteen years was also very intense: Yule with the poet Giuseppe Conte for the solo exhibition at the Circolo degli Artisti in Faenza (2000), performance Hagakure (2000, San Benedetto Po, Casa di Ros), project theatrical Hagakure (2001, Trieste, Teatro dei Fabbri; Vicenza, Teatro Astra; Verona, Teatro Nuovo), Return to the Angel (2002), A part (of all parts) curated by Beatrice Buscaroli (Tolmezzo, 2004), Each voyage is a return (2005, Udine, Galleria Nuova Artesegno), Ottantuno (2005, Milan, space ContemporaneaMente), Spiritual Hierarchies (passage in Ticino) (2008, Chiasso, Galleria Folini Arte Contemporanea), Risvegli (2009, Buonanno Arte Contemporanea) , Imaginary Landscapes with the poet Tomaso Kemeny (2010, Milan, Galleria Poli Art).
Among the group exhibitions in which he took part are: Emergenze curated by D. Eccher (1994, Trento, Contemporary Art Gallery), Titanica curated by V. Coen (1995, State Museum of San Marino), Aniconica and Latest Acquisitions (both 1998, Bologna, Bologna Modern Art Gallery), Oscillation Fields (2000, Piedmont Region), Abstract Generation (2000, Busto Arsizio, Bandera l'Arte Foundation), Generational curated by B. Buscaroli (2001, Vicenza, Basilica Palladiana), Trespassing (2002, Castello di Spezzano), La Santa Alleanza (2005, Sassuolo, Galleria Annovi), Mitomacchina (2006, Rovereto, MART), Lines on the Horizon curated by M. Sciaccaluga (2007, Genoa , Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Genova), Italian calling (2009, Canneto sull'Oglio, BonelliLAB), To Move (2009, Trento, New Interport Business Center), Abstracta curated by A. Agazzani (2009, Catania, Galleria Libra ), DITALIA (2009, Follonica, Civic Art Gallery), Storyboard (2011, Canneto sull'Oglio, Bonelli Contemporary Art), Artist's Rooms (2012, Rome, Russo Gallery and Angelica Library-Angelica Gallery).
On the occasion of the centenary of Futurism in 2008 he conceived the Manifesto project for a solo exhibition at the Open Art gallery in Prato, curated by Beatrice Buscaroli; in 2009 he created the fireworks display TracciantiVetteTricolori, presented the Futurist-designer relationship for the 40th AIPI (Vicenza, Teatro Olimpico) and created the Futurist Art-Life project (Padua) and the Great Futurist Evening in Buckskin Gloves (Padua, Verdi Stable Theater).
He has also published the essay Futurismo Antineutrale (Silvana Editoriale, 2010) and the post-faction of the volume dedicated to the futurist sculptor Quirino de Giorgio (2010).
He lives and works in Vicenza.
