Gian Carlo Ciccozzi

L'Aquila, 21 May 1973

 

Publications

 

• Gian Carlo Ciccozzi - “MAIOR”, Primis Series – Number one, Annidy Editore 2022, Naples

• Gian Carlo Ciccozzi in - Art Routes in Italy 2016, Rubbettino Editore

• Gian Carlo Ciccozzi, Italiani, Vittorio Sgarbi, EA Editore

• Gian Carlo Ciccozzi in - Cavallini – Sgarbi Collection

• Gian Carlo Ciccozzi, Art in the Kitchen, Mondadori Editore

• Icon Art Magazine, Giancarlo Ciccozzi, “The transformation of matter”, Edizioni Prince Group, Milan

• Catalog of PAN works, Palazzo delle Arti, “Metamorphosis, between sign and matter), Associated Editions, Naples

• Arte Salerno, International Award for Contemporary Art, Maritime Station and Palazzo Fruscione, 2017, Prince Group, Artcode Auction House, Salerno, Italy.

• General Artworks Catalog (ARTESTATES) - EAS Editore, year 2016, Palermo, Italy

• Catalogs and publications in magazines and books in Albania – France, Spain, Austria, Greece, Luxembourg, England, United Arab Emirates, USA.

• Catalogs of personal and collective exhibitions

• Articles and reviews in newspapers, blogs, web magazines and specialized magazines

 

Awards and recognitions

 

2022|Recognition of the artistic merit of General Bajram Begaj, President of the Republic of Albania, Tirana 2022

2021 | Special honorable mention “XLVIII° Premio Sulmona”, Italy

2020 | Special mention of merit “Gaetano Pallozzi”, XLVII Premio Sulmona, Italy

2019 | First prize at the Pescara Biennial of Contemporary Art

2018 | First prize at Arte Salerno, Salerno

2018 | Awarded the “Il Beato Angelico” Award, AIAM, Lecce

2017 | Honorary prize for innovative art “Ex Aurum”, Pescara

2016 | “Il Beato Angelico” international award, G. Paisiello theater in Lecce, Italy

2017 | Awarded the “I Bronzi di Riace” Award, AIAM, Lecce

2016 | Michelangelo Buonarroti Prize, Seravezza, Lucca

 

Personal exhibitions

 

2022 | 59th International Venice Biennale, pav. AL, Arsenale, Venice, Italy.

2012 | Palazzo dell'Emiciclo, Pinacoteca Benedetto Croce, Presidency of the Regional Council of Abruzzo, curated by F.G. Mazzeo and Rosario Sprovieri, L'Aquila, Italy

2022 | “Signum”, Signum Review (Single work), Bibliothè, edited by F.G. Mazzeo, Rome, Italy.

2021 | International art fair Artinnsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

2021 | Exhibition and presentation by Vittorio Sgarbi at the Scalinata di San Bernardino for the 727th edition of Perdonanza Celestiniana, L'Aquila, IT.

2020 | Scope New York Pavilion, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, USA

2020 | PAN, Palace of Arts in Naples, Italy

2020 | Palazzo Ciolina and Palazzo Ciccozzi, event of the 726th Celestinian Pardon of L'Aquila, Italy

2020 | Art Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

2020 | Personal exhibition at Palazzo dei Consoli, Gubbio, Italy

2019 | Art Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

2019 | Scope Miami Beach – International Art Fair, Florida, USA

2019 | Turelli Gallery, Montecatini Terme, Italy

2019 | Palazzo dell'Emiciclo, Pinacoteca Benedetto Croce, L'Aquila, Italy

2019 | Palazzo Burri-Gatti, 725th Celestinian Pardon of L'Aquila, Italy

2018 | Palazzo Lely-Gualtieri, 724th Celestinian Pardon of L'Aquila, Italy

2017 | Palazzo Lopardi Natellis, 722nd Celestina Perdonanza of L'Aquila, Italy

2017 | Town hall at the “Spoleto Festival”, Art in the City, Italy

2017 | Palazzo Lely-Gualtieri, 723rd Celestinian Pardon of L'Aquila, Italy

2016 | Renzo Piano Auditorium, L'Aquila, Italy

 

Collective exhibitions

 

• 2024 | 60th International Venice Biennale, Albania Pavilion, Venice, Italy.

• 2022 | Affordable Art Fair Hampstead Heath, London, UK.

• 2021 | Angelica Library of Rome - “Liber” contemporary art exhibition, curated by Antonella Nigro, Italy.

• 2021 | XLVIII ° Sulmona Prize, president Vittorio Sgarbi, Italy.

• 2020 | XLVII Sulmona Prize, president Vittorio Sgarbi, Italy.

• 2020 | Art Hub Al Khateem, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

• 2020 | Al Fahidi Historica, Neighborhood, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

• 2019 | XLVI° Sulmona Prize, Italy.

• 2019 | Pescara Contemporary Art Biennial, Italy-

• 2019 | Calabria-Citra Contemporary Art Biennial, Cosenza – Italy.

• 2019 | International exhibition of Arte Italia, Athens, Greece.

• 2019 | Contemporary art exhibition, Reale Regia di Portici of Naples, Italy

• 2019 | “Vasco da Gama” International Contemporary Art Award, Lisbon.

• 2019 | Caput Mundi Arte Roma, Palazzo Ferrajoli, Rome, Italy.

• 2019 | International Art Prize Florence, L. Da Vinci, Tuscany Region, Italy.

• 2019 | Prague Art Prize, Italian Cultural Institute, Prague, Czech Republic.

• 2018 | Salerno Art Prize, Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno, Italy.

• 2017 | XLV° Sulmona Prize, president Vittorio Sgarbi, Sulmona, Italy.

• 2017 | International biennial of contemporary art, San Leucio, Caserta, Italy.

• 2017 | Palazzo Albrizzi Cappello, parallel to the 57th Venice Biennale, Italy.

• 2017 | International Award “The Riace Bronzes”, AIAM, G. Paisiello of Lecce.

• 2017 | Palazzo delle Esposizioni, tribute to Frida Khalo, Rome, Italy.

• 2016 | Verona Triennale, Pala Expo, Verona, Italy.

• 2016 | International contemporary art exhibition “L’isola che c’è”, with Vittorio Sgarbi, Palermo, Italy

 

Biography

 

Giancarlo Ciccozzi was born in L'Aquila on 21 May 1973. His first oil on canvas works, conceived around the 90s, already showed the sign of a very in-depth research all projected towards the world of abstract art and in particular of the informal one. His curiosity towards this "concept of art" leads him to focus attention on emotional and gestural art. Self-taught, he began to frequent the "workshop" of the master Marcello Mariani, where he carried out his first experiments with informal painting, while continuing his studies in building engineering and architecture at the L'Aquila university. He thus approaches the artistic movements of the great masters of the 20th century such as Alberto Burri, Willem de Kooning, Emilio Vedova, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko. He is mentally and technically formed with the poetics of international abstract expressionism. He absorbs the professor's suggestions. Mariani and understands the value of the ancient techniques of drawing and painting, experiences which subsequently stimulate him and direct him towards a spontaneous art that will accompany him in his artistic career following the line of a continuous poetic exaltation of the material. From the end of the 90s he definitively switched to informal painting, redesigning the use of the materials used in terms of sign and technique.

The direct encounter with the work of Alberto Burri at the Burri Foundation in Città di Castello in 2001 was decisive. From that moment his new season of the Trasposizioni series began (decade 2000-2010). Ciccozzi began to experiment with his studies using fire and the controlled combustion of materials, especially as a means of varying colours, that of metals or even the burnt hues of the colors themselves. He rarely resorts to the use of pre-packaged acrylic or oil paints, preferring instead to work with pigments, oxides, earths, linseed oil, rabbit glue. He fiddles on the canvases with palette knives and tools, also his own invention. He experiments with materials and treatments with his own techniques, which then, at a later time, will be used to develop a broader discussion on the concept of evolution and the natural or accelerated transformation of matter.

In 2010, with the Trasposizioni series, he proposed informal abstract paintings which, with their archetypal, organic, thread-like and reticular forms, reveal original affinities with Burri, Rauschenberg and Mariani himself. The works after 2010 show a mood of a dramatic reality implemented with an informal interpretation. This poetic and moving art form was certainly strengthened first by the long vicissitudes relating to a road accident that occurred at a young age and, subsequently, by the pain of the drama of the earthquake that hit the city of L'Aquila in 2009. of his frequent quotes is: "my art is pure controlled chaos – perhaps like the reality of my emotions". Sharp tears and lacerations, special stones and adhesives, ancient papers and centenary documents, rabbit glue, oxides and natural earth pigments local and distant are used as colors, while non-homogeneous parts are designed to create effects that take us back to the origins of the matter, to the beginnings. Large international exhibitions begin in 2015; just to name a few, the one at the National Museum of Albanian History in Tirana, at the National Gallery of Vlora, ArtInnsbruck, Affordable Art Fair Hampstead Heath in London, Scope Miami in Florida, Scope New York, U.S.A., Barcelona, Paris, Prague, Madrid and, last but not least, the exhibition at the Palazzo dell'Emiciclo in L'Aquila , seat of the Presidency of the Abruzzo Regional Council, officially invited by the institution on the occasion of the "Tenth anniversary of the earthquake".

Not to forget the participation in international exhibitions such as the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale ed. 2022 (partly realized due to the Russian-Ukrainian war), and significant collective exhibitions in Rome, Gubbio, Lecce, Athens, Madrid, and in various Italian cultural institutes in Europe. In Lecce, he was awarded the prestigious "Beato Angelico" prize twice and, subsequently, the "I bronzes of Riace" prize from the Accademia Italia in Arte nel Mondo. He participates in international exhibitions organized by the Italian Cultural Institutes of Athens, Madrid, Lisbon, Prague, Arab Emirates and others. In 2018 he moved for a short period to Tirana and then to Vlora, where he works and strengthens ties with important contemporary artists also coming from other European nationalities, starting with prof. Gazmend Leka, former director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tirana. In Italy he receives awards and recognition in important international art exhibitions with critical reviews by Francesco Gallo Mazzeo, Vittorio Sgarbi, Giorgio Di Genova, Duccio Trombadori, Jean Blancheart, Rosario Sprovieri, Paolo Levi, Luca Beatrice, and many others.

In 2020 it received the "Special Mention of Merit with the award dedicated to "Gaetano Pallozzi", creator of the prestigious and long-lived "Sulmona Award" for its 47th edition. In January 2020 he held a solo exhibition inside the ArtInnsbruck 2020 pavilion. In 2021 he received the "Special Honorable Mention" award from Vittorio Sgarbi at the Premo Sulmona 2021 together with maestro Ennio Calabria.

In 2022 he participated at the official invitation of the Albanian government in the 59th edition of the Venice International Biennale, receiving the recognition of artistic merit from the President of the Albanian Republic Bajram Begaj.