Velasco

Velasco Vitali was born in 1960 in Bellano on Lake Como. His sphere of activity originally devoted to drawing and graphics soon developed to painting and sculpture. The meeting with Giovanni Testori and his taking part in the exhibition Artists and Writers at the Rotonda della Besana marked his calling. Following a number of one-man shows Velasco’s work began to concentrate on the tragedy that destroyed Valtellina at the end of the Eighties. A distinctive trait of Velasco’s work is his constant interest in portraiture which has gained approval in exhibitions and publications. His relation to the group Officina Milanese, at the end of the Nineties reveals a new interest: he discovers Sicily and the south of Italy. The result is a number of exhibitions such as Isolitudine (Charta) with Ferdinando Scianna in 2000 and Mixtura (Charta) with Franco Battiato in 2003. In 2006, a site-specific project is carried out for Teatro dell’Arte in Milan. Private and public collections hold woks by Velasco: amongst them Collezione Farnesina of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MACRO, Museum of contemporary Arts both in Rome. In 2007, he participated as part of a group show Pittura Italiana 1968-2007 held at Palazzo Reale in Milan. At the end of this year he took part with a grand installation in the group show Ultime Ultime Cene at the Cenacolo Vinciano,(Galleria Gruppo Credito Valtellinese and Piccola Sacrestia of the Convent Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan). In 2008 he realized his project LATO4 together with Danilo Eccher, and participated in the collective exhibition Junkbuilding at the Bovisa Triennale.