Marco Cingolani was born in Como in 1961 and moved to Milan in 1978, when he was still very young Here he entered creative underground circles, in which art was mixed up with fashion and punk music In those years, a new artistic sensitivity was arising in Milan, with roots no longer in the history of art and quotationism, for it brought about a critical manipulation of reality and its communication through the mass media The image was removed from its context and from common feelings It was radically overturned and almost derided Right from the outset, Marco Cingolani‘s work has always aimed to do away with the prescriptive power of media images, subjecting them to his radical treatment in the certainty that art offers a decisive point of view for interpreting the world…
This was the context that led to paintings like Interviste (Interviews), in which personalities who are famous for their reservedness are overwhelmed by microphones, the celebrated series on the Attentato al Papa (The Attack on the Pope), and the tragic affair of Aldo Moro After his works were shown in several group exhibitions, including Una scena emergente (1991, Museo Pecci, Prato) and Due o tre cose che so di loro (1998, PAC, Milan) Important anthological shows of his works have been put on by prestigious institutions, including Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin In November 2006 he took part in the Senza Famiglia group exhibition at Palazzo della Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin 2007 brought yet another consecration of his work: Galleria Emilio Mazzoli hosted a show entitled Di che colore sono?, which presented his pictorial reflections on the colour of Power and its disguises In his art Cingolani has always been fascinated by the shift from news to history and vice versa Here too, the blue helmets of the UN are contextualised in highly symbolic settings, as are the red urn containing electoral ballots, the multicoloured segments of Wall Street graphics, and the military uniforms and flags of political parties In 2009 Marco Cingolani, often the creator of works that are openly inspired by religious themes, conceived Journeys of Faith for Gallery Boxart in Verona This is a return to his origins For this exhibition the artist has particularly focused his attention on two apparitions of the Virgin Mary which have played a hugely important role in the history of the past two centuries: Lourdes and Fatima