Marcello Jori

Marcello Jori was born in Merano in 1951. Arriving in Bologna in the early 1970s, and opposed to a traditional academic preparation, he chose to complete his classical studies at the Faculty of Art History, where he met Renato Barilli, who in 1977 would curate his first photographic exhibition at the Galleria De' Foscherari in Bologna. From the very beginning, he started his surgical work on the body and soul of the artist, and on his work itself—the vanished artist and the living artist. It is a practice he would never abandon, and which would lead him to use photography, painting, and writing as materials equally necessary for the construction of a world as complex as the one that represents him today.

Among the protagonists of the Italian art scene, he has participated in two Venice Biennials, the Paris Biennale, and two Rome Quadriennals. He has held exhibitions in national and international galleries and museums, including: Galleria d'Arte Moderna Rome, Studio Morra and Galleria Trisorio Naples, Studio Marconi Milan, De' Foscherari Bologna, Corraini Mantua, Hayward Gallery London, Kunstverein Frankfurt, Holly Solomon New York, Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea Trento, Castel Sant'Elmo Naples, and Galleria d'Arte Moderna Bologna.

From the beginning of his career, he has pursued a "total art" project that today leads him to occupy a highly topical position in the definition of contemporary eclecticism. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of the Nuovo Fumetto Italiano (New Italian Comics). He published in Italy for Linus, Alter, and Frigidaire, and in France for Albin Michel in L'Echo des Savanes. He also collaborated with the magazines Vogue and Vanity. From 1992 to 1998, he designed exclusively for the Japanese publishing house Kodansha.

In 1996, he published the book La Città Meravigliosa degli artisti straordinari with texts by Stefano Benni and Alessandro Mendini, accompanied by an exhibition at the Town Hall of Siena, where the conceptual and pictorial construction of a city destined to host and celebrate special inhabitants began: original artists destined for immortality. Artists portrayed from life and surrounded by buildings tailored to their bodies.

In the 2000s, he published Nonna Picassa, a novel for Mondadori, and carried out useful explorations in new areas of creativity that helped him understand other levels of artistic communication, such as mass music: Rock. The experience led him to create the scenography for Vasco Rossi's Rock sotto l'assedio (Rock Under Siege), a concert held at the San Siro stadium in Milan: a 20-by-70-meter painted city.

In 2000, he held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, curated by Danilo Eccher, in which his photographic work from the 1970s was revisited. In Milan in 2003, at the Emi Fontana gallery, he presented the Predicazioni (Preachings) for the first time, unique books written and illustrated by hand by the artist. To bring legendary artists back to life, he invented a new way of storytelling in the form of "preaching." A text accompanied by illustrations, intended to be read aloud. Jori himself would do so, at the MAMbo in Bologna and at the Macro in Rome.

In 2007, the comic book medium, which the artist had abandoned, reappeared in new forms in his collaboration with the company Alessi, which began with the series titled Figure. Likewise, painting found new expression in his collaboration with the company Moroso. In 2010, his first work for Moroso was presented at the Salone del Mobile in Milan: Alì Babà, il tavolo del tesoro (Alì Babà, the treasure table).

The artist lives and works between Bologna and Turin.