"Prometheus - 2013" Photograph

Biographical notes
Marcello Mazzella is a multi-talented multimedia artist and a indefatigable experimenter in how new techno-
logies reconfigure imagery and in new ways of thinking and making art. To his credit he has made his way in
quite diverse fields having to do with a vision of where contemporary art lives, in its globalized and virtual
spaces; and with the exploration of contemporary art’s survival and reconfigurations of archetypes that
continue to live in it. Neapolitan by birth, in 1965, he was born to a family of artisans and artists. Naples is
an enigmatic city and one that is extraordinarily vital; it is a laboratory of the archaic and at the same time of
the sublime out of control contemporary. Mariano, Mazzella’s paternal grandfather, was a picture restorer, his
father Rosario, a painter and art teacher. Mazzella’s uncles were all artists too. The Mazzella family home was
a meeting place for Italian and international artists and intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century,
such as Palma Bucarelli and Giulio Carlo Argan. The young Mazzella received his diplomas of Maestro di Arte
and Maturità di arte applicata (Applied Arts) from the Istituto statale d’arte in Torre del Greco near Naples,
specializing in engraving on coral and pietre dure.
At 19 Mazzella moved to Milan, where he graduated with a diploma in Sculpture from the Brera Accademia di
Belle Arti. He took courses taught by Davide Boriani, Alik Cavaliere, Francesco Leonetti, Tommaso Trini and
Grazia Varisco. As a student he exhibited his works in the Galleries of the Brera academy with Alik Cavaliere.
He completed his studies with a thesis in art history supervised by Tommaso Trini called: “The Computer and
Art.” Mazzella then worked in Milan for one year as a computer graphics apprentice at the post-production
studio Pontaccio for programs on Rai 2 (Radiotelevisione italiana).
While working he produced sculptural works inspired by mirror anamorphoses which were exhibited at the
Cafiso Gallery in Milan.
in 1988 he was one of the founders of the Italian-Swiss multimedia group AiEP (Adventures in Helicopter Pro-
ducts.) The group consisted of 3 visual artists: Mazzella, Claudio Prati, Carlo Somaini, and the choreographer
Ariella Vidach; the group created several dance-video-computer-sculpture works, shown at exhibitions and
art festivals in Italy and abroad.