A pupil of Luciano Fabro at the Accademia di Brera, Mario Airò found his first important points of reference in Arte Povera and, more generally, in art of the 1960s. In the evolution of his artistic development, his works, which range from sculpture to installations and works on paper, have drawn inspiration from suggestions of a different nature, each time born from direct experience with everyday life, nature or cultural spheres such as cinema, the history of art, literature, music and philosophy, which the artist reworks in visionary, essential and poetic compositions, passing on to the viewer the same suggestions that generated them. The result of intuitive juxtapositions with a light, sometimes casual and always anti-monumental appearance, Mario Airò's work emerges as the projection of a desire: that of allowing an image to flow spontaneously from an encounter with things.
Mario Airò (Pavia, 1961) lives and works in Milan, the city where he studied and began his artistic career in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The artist's principal exhibitions include: Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (TE) 2020; Galleria Nazionale di Parma - Palazzo della Pilotta, Parma (2015); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa (2013); Palazzo della Triennale, Milan (2004); GAM, Turin (2001); S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium (2001); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2001); Kunsthalle Lophem, Belgium (2000). His works are present in important public and private collections including the MAXXI in Rome, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea (Turin), GNAM in Rome, MAMbo in Bologna, Museion in Bolzano. Mario Airò has participated in the Venice Biennale in 1997, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2005 and the Gwangju Biennale (South Korea) in 2004. His light installation Cosmometrie is part of the permanent public “Luci d’Artista” project in Turin. Some of his projects have also been realised as part of the public commissioning programme called “New Patrons” and of the international collective of the same name, “Nouveaux Commanditaires”.