Flavio Favelli Biography
Flavio Favelli (1967 - ), born in Florence in 1967, lives and works in Savigno (Bologna). In 1993 he graduated in Oriental Studies at the University of Bologna, only subsequently starting his career as an artist. He has established himself in the contemporary art panorama thanks to collages of objects, site-specific installations and public art interventions, some of which are permanent. His works have been exhibited in prestigious international institutions, including: Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (2022); GAM, Turin (2022); Adolfo Pini Foundation, Milan (2021); Il bello inverso, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice (2019); Art Basel Hong Kong – the Encounters section curated by Yuko Hasegawa (2013); MAXXI, Rome (2015, 2012, 2010); Museo del Novecento, Milan (2012), MACRO, Rome (2012; 2011); Tate Modern, London (2010), MCA, Chicago (2009), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2008; 2007, 2002); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2008), MAMBO, Bologna (2007); Creative Art Center, Beijing (2006); Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles (2004). In 2012 the artist represented Italy at the XI Biennial of Havana and participated twice, in 2003 and 2013, in the Venice Biennale. Favelli creates works using old furnishings or everyday objects that evoke the bourgeois aesthetics of the family environments in which he grew up or the oriental cultures he studied at university. His works are collages, sculptures or installations in which these recycled materials are combined, giving life to layers of meaning that isolate the object from its mere material reality, elevating it to an artistic dimension. In his works there is a strong sense of Italianness. In his art he develops and reworks the contradictions that emerged with the rise of conceptual art (and pop-art) at an international level, placing these theoretical frameworks within the forms and creations of the Italian conceptual tradition.
