Mario Ceroli

Born in Abruzzo, Mario Ceroli trained in Rome, at the Art Institute. He attended Leoncillo’s ceramic courses, following him as an assistant even outside school hours; he soon began working at the studios of Fazzini and Colla. At the end of his school years, in 1957, he ended his collaborations and continued to dedicate himself to ceramics in his studio in Via Gregoriana. He also stopped attending courses at the Academy of Fine Arts, following only the evening lessons held by Toti Scialoja. In 1958 he began working with wood: Untitled is the first work performed with this material, a trunk pierced by nails, which marks a clear break with the research that the artist had carried out up to that point. moment. In that period he also used metal surfaces, intervening on them with lacerations and nails. Between ’64 and ’66 he exhibited silhouettes of people, letters and objects at the La Tartaruga gallery in Rome, made using raw packaging wood, which would become a characteristic feature of his work (works such as the Cassa Sistina and China, born from the reading of Dear China, written by my friend Goffredo Parise). He was present at the Quadrennial in ’65 and will participate again in the editions of ’85, ’92 and ’99. In 1966 he took part in Aspetti dell’Arte Italiana Contemporanea, exhibition which stopped in Rome, Dortmund, Bergen, Cologne, Oslo, Belfast and Edinburgh. In the same year he also participated in the Venice Biennale, where he subsequently returned in the editions of ’68, ’76, ’82, ’84, ’88 and ’93. Since 1968 he has also been involved in an intense activity as a set designer. In 2007, one of his major exhibitions celebrated the reopening of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, after long years of closure for renovation.