BIOGRAPHY

THE ARTIST

Born and raised in Pavia, Gianni Cella's early training took place first at the Liceo Artistico Raffaello Sanzio in Pavia and later at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in Painting with Professor Manfredi.

His interest in art dates back to his childhood, observing his father's painting materials. The link with childhood is maintained in his production, characterized by colorful and ironic sculptures in fiberglass and anthropomorphic alien figures. He immediately devoted himself to painting, sculpture and drawing. The first works of the seventies highlight a strong link with pop culture and comics, creating cartoons that tell surreal and alienating anecdotes.

He then turned to fiberglass, as a material historically little used but with interesting plastic characteristics: easily modeled like clay but able to achieve a homogeneous result, hiding the imprint of the modeler. In addition, he continues to use the technique of drawing and painting in oil on canvas. The inspiration for his works comes from the word, often the title contains the meaning and the key to understanding. With his works, the artist wants to make people think, transmitting messages halfway between the tragic and the grotesque but with a playful, colorful and captivating language, a mirror of contemporary consumer society.

He exhibited for the first time in 1982 together with Romolo Pallotta and Claudio Ragni, with whom he founded the Plumcake collective, housed in the rooms of Luciano Inga-Pin's Il Diagramma gallery. It was after the foundation of the collective that he experimented with sculpture, first with wood and papier-mâché and later with fiberglass, destined to become his stylistic hallmark.

The collective was presented in 1984 together with the New Futurists group at the Arte Fiera in Bologna and in 1985 on the international scene at the Groningen Museum. Between 1990 and 1993 the participations in the most important international exhibitions are concentrated, starting with the Aperto 90 section of the XLIV International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, the following year they are invited to the XV International Biennial of bronze and small sculpture in Padua and in 1992 at the Fellbach Triennial. In 1993 they took part in the international exhibition Il mondo di Snoopy at the Spazio Flaminio in Rome.

Gianni Cella separated from the other two Plumcakes in January 2000 to continue his artistic career alone. Over the last 20 years he has collected numerous successes in Italy and abroad, attending both independently and in the context of New Futurism. The split from Plumcake does not manifest itself through a decisive stylistic break, even if there is a return to painting, in oil or watercolor, the interest in popular and mass culture remaining evident. Cella brings with it a greater interest in the narrative aspect, creating a universe composed of stereotyped and sometimes disturbing characters, ironic representations of the contradictions of the society of entertainment and consumerism. Therefore, behind comic and pop iconography there is a careful look at the society of conformity, underlining the inadequacy of modern man with corrosive irony.

He inaugurated his individual exhibition career by participating in the Toy Story collective in Tortolì in 2000, at the Su logu de s'Iscultura Museum. His first solo exhibition was held in 2002 at the Galleria Maria Cilena in Milan where he will return several times in the following years. Also noteworthy is the 2005 one-man show hosted at the Studio Vigato in Alessandria, an occasion in which he exhibited some key works such as Ex aequo (2005) and Ex capo (2006).

In 2016, the Sabina Melesi Gallery in Lecco dedicated a personal exhibition to Gianni Cella entitled The spirit of the lake, curated by Valerio Dehò, where for the first time the installation of the same name was shown to the public, made up of aliens, sea creatures and characters such as Pollock, Hitler and Van Gogh. Van Gogh dedicated a themed exhibition at the Pinacoteca Cesare Belossi in Varallo Pombia in 2009, proposing some works presented on the occasion of Warum Erwachen? The bi-personal exhibition with Corrado Bonomi held at the Mannheimer Kunstverein in Mannheim in 2006.

The partnership with Bonomi will continue in the following years with No Limits Except Art at the Zaion Gallery in Biella in 2019. Together with the Novara artist, he creates four-handed works such as Why wake up? where Bonomi's Castles in the air merge with Cella's fiberglass heads, recently re-proposed in Cannobio in 2022 in the widespread exhibition Riflessioni plastiche, curated by Fabrizio Parachini.

Abroad he collaborates with the Angelo Falzone Gallery in Mannheim and, again in Germany, he attends Art Twente 3 at the Hengels Expo Center in 2001. In 2011 Renato Barilli dedicates a two-person exhibition to Gianni Cella and Luciano Palmieri at the Arrivada Gallery in Chur and in 2018 he landed in Russia at the National Museum of the Bashkir Republic in Ufa with the Shakurov exhibition.

In Milan he exhibited for important public institutions such as the Teatro dell'Arte with Criminal Painting (2008) and at the Fabbrica del Vapore for the group show The Famous Invasion of Artists in Milan (2015), held simultaneously at the Galleria Antonio Colombo where already in 2012 he had presented the personal Eden, in the context of the Little Circus project. Also in Milan, he exhibited at the Galleria Antonio Battaglia with Gianni Cella: hero of painting, curated by Loredana Parmesani in 2019.

In 2015 he was present at the Milan Triennale for the exhibition of Celadon vases, which will be re-proposed in South Korea in Gwagju, taking up the successful Plumcake experience in the field of design, boasting collaborations with Alessandro Mendini, Swatch and Rosenthal.

After the stop due to the pandemic, he returns to exhibit in 2021 in Marina di Ravenna with The submerged world of Gianni Cella, curated by Sandro Malossini and with the group shows Umana matrice d'arte in Novara and Dante's legacy in Fortunago.

In 2023 Gianni Cella's 40 years of activity are celebrated through a large solo show held at the Fondazione Stelline in Milan entitled Plastic appearances: from Plumcakes to Gianni Cella. The exhibition, curated by Alberto Fiz, was an opportunity to narrate Cella's journey from the beginning with the Plumcakes, present with works such as The mountain of lizards (1985), Rocket (1983) and Apparizioni modeste (1994), up to to the most current experiments such as Caos primigenio and Ex voto (both works in progress).