Unnatural Sculpture

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.