Marco Cingolani

Cingolani was born in Como, Italy, in 1961.[1] He attended the artistic high school in Como and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1984.[2] In 1978 he moved to Milan, where he got into the local underground scene, where art mixed with fashion and punk music,[3] hanging out with fellow artists such as Alessandro Pessoli, Massimo Kaufmann, and Stefano Arienti. This period resulted in a change in his artistic style.[4] In addition to referencing history of art, literature and sacred texts, Cingolani began to include socio-political commentaries in his work, and address how events are portrayed in the media.[5] Some of Cingolani's most well-known paintings are the series related to news events from the late 1970s/early 1980s, such as the series of Le Interviste (the Interviews, 1990-1993), L’Attentato al Papa (the Pope's Assassination Attempt, 1990) and Il ritrovamento del corpo di Aldo Moro (The Discovery of the Body of Aldo Moro, 1989).[6]

Cingolani has held exhibitions in several institutions such as the Pecci Museum in Prato; Palazzo Strozzi in Florence; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent; Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan; and the GAMeC in Bergamo.[7] In 2009, he exhibited at the 53rd Venice Biennale.[8] In 2011, on the occasion of Cingolani's 50th anniversary, an exhibition in three distinct institutional sites (Broletto, Pinacoteca Civica, Biblioteca Comunale) was organized in his birthplace, Como.[9]

Cingolani lives and works in Milan, where he teaches painting at the Brera Academy.