Marco Tirelli (b. 1956, Rome, Italy) is an Italian sculptor and painter who initially trained in set design. He started to exhibit his works in the 1970s and became a member of the New Roman School in the 1980s and 1990s. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1982 and in February of 1990 had an exhibition at the American Academy in Rome, where his series of drawings were placed in conversation with the works of American artist Sol LeWitt. In 2001 he presented a site-specific installation at the Fondazione Volume! in Rome, in which he engaged painting in an environmental dimension. 

Informed by a highly personal and allegorical vocabulary of memories, his works populate a complex visual archive that he has been systematically building since his early childhood. Through these archives, Tirelli activates mental realms of collective cultural memory and conventional conceptions of value. 

Selected Exhibitions

Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Antwerp and Hong Kong; Institut Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt; Modern Art Gallery (GAM), Bologna; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome; Museum of Palazzo Fortuny, Venice; MACRO, Rome; German Academy of Villa Massimo, Rome; Instituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome; Fondazione Cerere in Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art, Ankara; Sydney Biennial, Sydney; Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul; and the Venice Biennale, Venice.

Selected Collections

MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; La Galleria Nazionale, Rome; MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Farnesina Art Collection, Rome; European Parliament Art Collection, Brussels; MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto; Il Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; Palazzo Fortuny, Venice; the Albertina Museum, Wien; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan.

Images appear courtesy of the artist.