Marcello Jori

Marcello Jori as born in Merano in 1951 and he lives and works in Milan, Paris and Merano.
A leading figure in Italian art in the 1980s and 1990s, he is now an exponent of an art form that has few equals in the current artistic landscape.
He began his artistic career in Bologna in the 1970s, using various means of expression such as photography, painting and writing. He held his first exhibition in 1977 at the Galleria de’ Foscherari in Bologna, curated by Renato Barilli. Since the beginning of his activity the use of the word is a recurring theme in his work. He initially dedicated himself to painted writings and in the 1980s he was one of the founders of the “Nuovo fumetto italiano” movement. He published in Italy for Linus, Alter and Frigidaire, in France for Albin Michel on L’Écho des Savanes. He also contributes to the magazines Vogue and Vanity. From 1992 to 1998 he draws exclusively for the Japanese publishing house Kōdansha. At the beginning of the 1990s he helds three important exhibitions in the US: the group exhibition Psycho curated by Christian Leigh, a four – people exhibition with Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt and James Croak at the Kunsthalle in New and a solo exhibition at the Art Institute in Boston. In the 2000s, he published Nonna Picassa, a novel for Mondadori. In Milan, in 2003, at the Galleria Emi Fontana, he presented for the first time Predicazioni, a series of handwritten and illustrated books, each one unique, in which he recounts the lives of legendary artists in an original way. In 2007 he began his collaboration with leading design companies such as Alessi and Moroso. On the occasion of its latest solo exhibition, between 2011 and 2015 the Marconi Foundation published five volumes entitled: Gli Albi dell’Avventura. Since 2011, he has been collaborating with Corriere della Sera, for which he has created six covers and writes about art as an artist. In 2014, Flash Art launched his first serialised art history, written, illustrated and directed by an artist. In 2016, he published with Rizzoli Storia Dipinta dell’Arte, the first History of Art handwritten and illustrated by an artist, the English version of which was published in 2017 by Rizzoli New York. In 2018, he created a handwritten and illustratd version of Carlo Collodi’s Le avventure di Pinocchio, the first edition of which was published by Galleria Mazzoli and the second by Rizzoli in 2019. In 2025, he realized OH!, a 4-metre bronze sculpture depicting Pinocchio, which is on display in Piazza Mercato in Naples.
Today, Marcello Jori defines himself as a “complete artist”, a reference to the Renessaince artst who practised painting and sculptures with equal skill, was a designer, tackled architecture and wrote treatises, even though he is first and foremost a painter.
Marcello Jori took part in three Venice Biennale, in Biennale de Paris (1985), in two Roma Quadriennale (1986, 1996). He has held exhibitions in national and international galleries and museums, including: Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Rome; Castel Sant’Elmo, Studio Morra e Studio Trisorio, Naples; Studio Marconi e Palazzo Reale, Milan; Museion, Bolzano; Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Galleria De’ Foscherari, Bologna; Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea, Trento; Hayward Gallery, London; Kunstverein, Frankfurt; Holly Solomon Gallery, New York City; Ocean House, Miami; Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano; Sammlung Goetz, Munich.

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