MASSIMO BARTOLINI

Born in Cecina, where he currently lives and works, Massimo Bartolini conducted his artistic training between Florence, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, and Milan.

His work is the result of an investigation into the relationship between man, nature and architectural space. The environments reinvented, or even created, are never structured as a static place, but rather as a progressive multisensory dimension.

His first exhibitions in Italy date back to the first half of the 1990s. After a few years he began to exhibit abroad: in 2001 he was at PS1 in New York with a Special Project entitled Untitled (Wave) for MoMA.

Massimo Bartolini, Pensive Bodhisattva on A Flat, 2024 – Courtesy the artist, Massimo De Carlo, Frith Street Gallery and Magazzino Photo © Agostino Osio / AltoPiano

– What are the biggest challenges you have met in your career?

To perceive poetry with strength and delicacy. To be attentive and fair to a space and those who inhabit it…. However, if the question specifically refers to works, then I would cite Untitled (Wave) for Documenta 11 in Kassel and Due qui/To Hear at this year’s Biennale di Venezia.

Due qui – Courtesy the artist, Massimo De Carlo, Frith Street Gallery and Magazzino – Photo © Agostino Osio / AltoPiano

Massimo Bartolini, Due qui, 2024 – Courtesy the artist, Massimo De Carlo, Frith Street Gallery and Magazzino – Photo © Agostino Osio / AltoPiano

– How was your passion for art born?
I lived far away from everything and at a certain point I felt the desire to understand, and to think properly.
Years before, I had seen a friend of mine draw. It seemed like a miracle to me.
To understand and think properly I must do it with my hands, I said to myself. And I thought again about the miracle of drawing.
After a few months I moved to Florence and enrolled in a drawing course. As Paul Valéry once said, “There is an immense difference between seeing something without a pencil in your hand and seeing it while you are drawing it”.