Matteo Gironi

Artist biography

Matteo Gironi is a mid-career established artist, who originates from Italy, like other established artists such as SANTISSIMI, Afro Eccli, Bernhard Rudiger, Giuseppe Uncini, and Monica Carocci. Matteo Gironi was born in 1973. Artists like Scott Anderson, Iris Schomaker, Zoë Charlton, Tom Chamberlain, and Andrea Zuppa were also born in 1973.

About Matteo Gironi's works

Matteo Gironi's work is characteristic of the field of Abstraction, Conceptual and Design. Abstract art first started to emerge in the early 20th century, as a new and rather radical form of art. Artists were looking for a way of expressing the societal changes occurring at the time, and release their creative energy, thus moving away from figurative art. With abstraction, the artists distance themselves from any accurate representation of reality, and the visual qualities often put in focus in such non-representative works are colours, shapes and textures. Some of the most influential contemporary art movements born from Abstraction include Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, with key figures such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock. With abstract art, a sense of self-renewing freedom is materialising through the artworks, in a new tradition of creativity.

Emerging as an art movement in the 1960s, Conceptualism has sparked a significant amount of controversy and debate, usually provoking strong reactions in its audience. Conceptual art by essence implies that the idea behind the actual artwork is more valuable than the finished product itself. The research and strategies conducted by the artist represent the most significant part of the work, conceptual art thus strives to be an art of the mind, instead of appealing to the senses. Although it refers to art from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, the origins of Conceptualism can be traced back to 1917, with Marcel Duchamp and his controversial artwork Fontaine, which tried to obliterate the boundaries between art and reality. Conceptual art is not as straightforward as other movements, as it uses an interdisciplinary approach, and the artworks can take the form of anything - from everyday objects to performances requiring audience participation.

Often used in the context of the decorative arts in the early 20th century, the term “design” would usually refer allusion to unique, aesthetically pleasing objects. With the increase of consumerism and mass production in modern society, the core essence of design encountered a shift in its identity, with a significant increase in demand. The main types of design involve areas such as industrial design, graphic design or fashion design.

Galleries and Exhibitions

Matteo Gironi is represented by E3 arte contemporanea in Brescia, Italy. Matteo Gironi's work has most recently been exhibited at E3 arte contemporanea in Brescia (02 March 2019 until the 13 April 2019) with the exhibition Emersione.

At present, Matteo Gironi has a total of seven artworks for sale at Artland.

Matteo Gironi's Biographical Context

Matteo Gironi was born in 1973, grew up during the 1990s and was influenced by the artistic atmosphere of the time. Art in the 1990s was defined at the beginning of the decade by a group of artists in the United Kingdom that came to be known as the YBAs, or Young British Artists. They were a diverse collective of artists, affiliated loosely by their age, nationality, and their association with Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art in London, as well as being favoured by super collector of the time Charles Saatchi. The most famous artist of the group is Damien Hirst, who was also an early organiser of group activities. Other artists included Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas and Sam Taylor-Wood. Much of their art became noted for shock tactics and the sensationalism of both material and message. They also became known for their use of throwaway materials, wild-living, and an attitude that was simultaneously counter-culture rebellion but also entrepreneurial. They achieved considerable amount of media coverage and dominated British art during the 1990s. Their international shows in the mid-1990s included the now legendary ‘Sensation'. Also gaining prominence at this time was an emergent trend in Japan related to the huge boom in advertising and consumerism that took place during the economic dominance of the 1980s. The indigenous comic book culture of manga, allied to trends in advertising, graphic design and packaging, saw a young artist called Takashi Murakami develop his theories which he coined ’Superflat’. Influenced by his experiences in New York City in the mid-1990s, Murakami was to form an influential group called Kaikaikiki, which became internationally renowned as an artistic group.

Historical Context of Italy

Italy has been tremendously sumptuous in cultural power since the time of the Romans, this classical period has exerted a fascinating influence on the cultural growth and identity of the country. Italy represents the country of the Renaissance, called 'Rinascita' in Italian, signifying 'rebirth'. The Renaissance has been considered, from the early 1400s, as the first major flowering of cultural sophistication in art, architecture, music, poetry, philosophy and politics since the Middle Ages. During the modern and contemporary period, Italy was afflicted by the fascism of Mussolini but has nevertheless remained as an important centre for artistic expression, spawning movements such as Futurism, Arte Povera and the Minimalism related to the Zero Movement, as well as the expressive painting of the Transavanguardia. Critically acclaimed Italian artists of the twentieth and twenty first centuries include Giorgio Di Chirico, Giacomo Balla, Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Giacometti, Lucio Fontana, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Francesco Clemente and Mimmo Paladino.