Alberto Biasi (1937 Padua, Italy) is one of the leading figures of post-war Italian art and a founding member of the historic Gruppo N. He continues to live and work in Padua.
After the end of World War II, Biasi enrolled in the Department of Architecture at the University of Venice while simultaneously attending an advanced course in industrial design. From 1969 to 1988 he taught advertising graphic arts at the Professional Institute in Padua.
In 1959 he took part in several youth art events and, together with fellow architecture students, formed Gruppo Enne-A. In 1960 he exhibited alongside Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, Agostino Bonalumi and other European artists at Galleria Azimut in Milan. That same year, during a period marked by strong innovation and experimentation, and in close collaboration with Manfredo Massironi, he founded Gruppo N. In 1961 he joined the movement Nuove Tendenze (New Trends).
Between 1959 and 1960 Biasi created the Trame, rectangular, permeable structures whose modularity produces optical-kinetic effects through the interplay of light and the viewer’s shifting gaze. Shortly afterwards he developed the Rilievi ottico-dinamici, overlapping lamellar works in contrasting colours that generate dynamic visual responses. In the following years he created the Torsioni, employing mainly two-colour lamellae to produce optical movement from different viewpoints, and the Ambienti. He also conceived the Light Prisms, designed in 1962 and later developed on an environmental scale in 1969.
In the 1970s he began working on the Politipi, a cycle he continued into the 1990s, characterised by layers of fine interwoven strips that allude to a three-dimensional spatial depth. In the late 1990s he developed the Assemblaggi, compositions of different, often monochrome surfaces — including diptych and triptych formats — where spatiality becomes increasingly pronounced. In the last decade, this exploration has extended into a series of vertical steel sculptures.
Throughout his sixty-year career, Biasi has participated in major international exhibitions, including the XXXII and XLII Venice Biennale, the X, XI and XIV Rome Quadriennale, and the XI São Paulo Biennial. He has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, among them those at the Museo Civico agli Eremitani in Padua, Museu Diocesà in Barcelona, Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, MACBA in Buenos Aires, MAC in Santiago de Chile, Palazzo Reale in Genoa, and Palazzo Pretorio in Cittadella (Padua).
His works are held in prestigious public museums and collections in Italy and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome; and the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
For information on available works by the artist, please contact the gallery.