Niccolò Moronato

About

Niccolò Moronato is a visual artist frequently based in Italy and the United States.
Through video, language, food, and the practice of collage, he explores the contradictions of the world, focusing on manifestations of concepts that colonize the mind and body: order, landscape, identity, public space, tradition, and progress.
His artistic practice began without any formal academic training in 2016, and since then, he has always sought schools more than showcases, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he attended Continuing Studies classes.
Since 2015, he has been teaching Language Design at Politecnico di Milano, aiming to foster a critical, not just practical, approach to the art of creating names, words, and concepts.
His artistic approach is informed by his background in economics, foreign languages, and advertising, giving him a critical, ironic, and deconstructive perspective.

STATEMENT

My work is influenced by my training in languages, economics, and advertising, with an approach based on cartography, collage and drawing.

What always pushes me towards new fields is a tendency - both intimately personal and artistic - to trouble pre-constructed singular imaginations.

Both when I travel and when I’m in my home environment - a tiny fishing island in the south Venice lagoon - I observe how behaviors, languages, relationships, and personalities are influenced by communication, advertising, cartography, and other forms of subliminal influence.

Through fiction and relational interventions, I build mirrors where glitches in logic appear evident, revealing false assumptions and controversial histories behind expressions of singular imaginations society tends to take for granted, such as the concepts of order, beauty, public space, tradition, or progress.

My work can take many forms: public art, public programs, sessions of collective imagination, videos, sound works, works on marginal media of mass communication (e.g. teletext, intercoms, phone booths,) maps, and drawings.

Regardless of the medium, it always exposes and questions linguistic and cultural processes that colonize the mind and space, bringing to life experiences that explore the ideological dimensions and material functions of landscape, technology, marketing techniques, historical narratives, and media as tools of subjugation, and exclusion.

I began my practice without any academic training and I’ve never had access to institutional circuits, so I design my works for people who do not necessarily feel they belong in galleries or museums.
Through my actions, I strive to awaken the sense of curiosity residing within every person - to help them become less predictable in the eyes of the systems controlling them; to instigate them to question the obvious, established, carved-in-stone truths of history and humanity.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2024
Trattoria Guaiana, IUNO, Rome.
Curated by Giulia Gaibisso.
Trattoria Guaiana, Villa Romana, Florence.
Curated by Mistura Allison.

It takes two to tango - experiments in emotional flags, with Ginevra Collini, SpazioMensa, Rome.

2022
Para Ovejas - restaurant for sheep, installation in Garzón, Uruguay, as part of CAMPO Art Fest 2022.

Leisure, participatory installation inside the Temple of Serapis / Macellum, Pozzuoli, Italy, winning project of Flegreo per il Contemporaneo call, curated by Attiva and hosted by the Authority for Archeaological Sites of Naples.

Rethinking Nature, group show, MADRE Museum, Naples, curated by Kathryn Weir and Ilaria Conti.

2021
Notes from the Bureau of Compromised Plans, show on Yes&No Magazine, London.

Address Unknown, group show, Edicola Radetzky, Milan, curated by Giulio Verago.

2020
The Smallest Controllable Element, part of Era Vulgaris group show, SpazioGamma, Milan

OOOroscope, TART 2020, Teletext of YLE (Finland’s National TV), Helsinki.

2019
An Alternative Map of the Universe, public program and group show departing from Firmament, curated by Jessica Taylor, supported by International Curators Forum and featuring works, videos, and talks by Larry Achiampong, Ewan Atkinson, Niklas Gustafson, Versia Harris, Emre Kazim, Paul O’Kane, Katarzyna Perlak, Pilar Quinteros and Abbas Zahedi.
Guest Projects, London (UK).

Firmament, solo show, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Arts, London (UK), nurtured with Claudia Contu.

OOOroskop, Ars Electronica Festival 2019, Linz
public teletext broadcast on ARD (German National TV) and ORF (Austria).

The Star Survey, Gasworks, London.
The Star Survey: Viperaria, Archivio DOCVA, Milan (performed with Rashayla Marie Brown).

OOOroscope, public teletext broadcast on RAI (Italian National TV).

2017
Franco e Renata (collab. with Thomas Berra), Pastificio Cerere Foundation, Rome.

Last In/First Out, porter’s lodge of Palazzo Archinto, Milan.

ri-RIP, performance and presentation of the second mapping, Gardens of Porta Venezia phonebooth, Milan.  

How do you say goodnight? at The Dangerous Professors, group show, Triumph Gallery, Chicago.

2016
RIP, installation and presentation of the first mapping, Viale Brianza phonebooth, Milan.

Part of Subculture Fanzine group showcase, Edicola Radetzky, Milan. 

SCHOLARSHIPS/AWARDS

NCTM e l’Arte grant, Milan, 2024.

Italian Council 11 Artist Research Grant, issued by the Italian Ministry of Culture, to develop a public program for project Guaiana Toscana, 2023. 

RESIDENCIES

October 2024 – IUNO, Rome.
April 2024 – PlayTime, Spazio Mensa, Rome.
December 2022 – CAMPO Art Residency, Garzón, Uruguay.
November 2022 – Flegreo per il contemporaneo, Pozzuoli (Naples).
July 2022 – Uva artist in residence, Nizza Monferrato.
November 2019 – Guest Projects, London.
January - December 2019 – VIR ViaFarini in residence, Milan.

COLLECTIONS

Collezione Panerai, Firenze
Collezione ViaFarini / Collezione Brusarosco
Collezione ViaFarini / Ferrari
Joan Flasch Collection, SAIC, Art Institute of Chicago. 

SUPPLEMENTARY COURSEWORK

2020 – AfA Masterclass, international artist-run masterclass program.

2020 – Painting: materials and methods, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

2018 – Drawing from Imagination, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

2017 – Experimental Drawing and Painting, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.