Marcello Morandini

Center. In 1982 he was invited with Attilio Marcolli to "documenta urbana" in Kassel and in the same year received a scholarship from the DAAD for a three-month stay in Berlin. In 1984 he held his first exhibition of art and design at the Museo della Ceramica in Cerro di Laveno, Varese. In the same year he was invited to Japan; during this period he began personal contacts with architectural firms, visits to several universities and exhibitions in various museums, curated by the publisher and gallery owner Masaomi Unagami of Tokyo. Also in 1984 he designed the 220-metre facade of the Thomas porcelain factory in Speichersdorf, Germany. In 1985 he organised three major exhibitions, the first at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, then a retrospective at the Museum of Bochum and one in Verona, at the Museo di Castelvecchio. In 1986-1987 he continued his exhibition activities in the museums of Darmstadt, Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Helsinki. 1987 was also a period of great collaboration with the Rosenthal company of Selb, for which he designed the 64-metre facade of the new administrative building. In 1988 Peter Volkwein, director of the Ingolstadt Museum, commissioned him to design a 40-metre sculpture as an external symbol of the museum. In 1991 he spent a long period in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, designing the architecture of a 34-storey commercial building. In 1993 he had his first major combined anthological exhibition of art and design at the Die Neue Sammlung Museum in Munich, exhibiting the following year in Lisbon at the Palacio Galveias for "Lisbon European Capital of Culture". Since 1994 he has been a member of the jury of the Design Center in Essen. In the same year he became president of the International Museum of Ceramic Design in Cerro di Laveno, Varese, a post he held for three years. From 1995 to 1997 he taught art and design at the Salzburg Summer Academy. From 1997 to 2001 he was a visiting professor at Écal in Lausanne. In 1998 his daughter Maria Enza was born, and since then he has concentrated his work more on Varese, a city that in 2000 dedicated an important retrospective exhibition to him in its museum and a catalogue published by Charta, Milan. In 2000 he began a collaboration with "Abitare Baleri" of Bergamo, studying a collection of home furniture. In 2003 he was a lecturer at the Brera Academy in Milan. In Switzerland he lectures at the HEAA watchmaking high school in La Chaux-De-Fonds. He directed the Sommerakademie in Plauen for the renovation of the Martin Luther Park. In the same year he became president of the Association of Free Artists of the Province of Varese. In 2004 he was coordinator of the project 'Vivere Venezia 3' at the IUAV University of Venice. On commission from the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, he designed a large 10-metre sculpture for the square next to the museum. He was elected an honorary member of the Royal Designer for Industry in London. In 2005 he held a major anthological exhibition of art and design in Germany, at the Europäisches Industriemuseum in Plößberg and at the Fürstenberg Museum. He opened the new Ritter Museum in Waldenbuch with a solo exhibition. In the same period he inaugurated his project for Piazza Montegrappa in Varese. In 2007, he designed the architecture of the cultural centre 'Das kleine Museum' in Weissenstadt, Germany. In 2008, at the same time as the Architecture Biennale, the Ca' Pesaro Museum in Venice staged a major exhibition of his work, which was integrated and exhibited the following year at the Neues Museum in Nürnberg. In 2010, an 11-metre sculpture of his was inaugurated as the symbol of the Europäisches Industriemuseum in Plößberg, in homage to Philip Rosenthal. He founded 'Artparty' in Varese for local culture. He opened a retrospective exhibition at the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua. In 2013 he took part in the International Sculpture Biennial in Racconigi. In 2014, he devoted himself to the planning of two important solo exhibitions, at the National Museum of Bayreuth, Germany and at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. In 2015 he took part in three exhibitions in Germany dedicated to three cultural themes: in München at the Renate Bender gallery with the exhibition entitled "Black and White", in Waldenbuch at the Museum Ritter "Ein Quadrat ist ein Quadrat" and in Konstanz at the Galerie Geiger for the 40th anniversary of the gallery. Then three more exhibitions on different themes in Varese at the Masnago Castle in Lugano, at the Cortesi Gallery and at the Museum of Art in Fukuyama, Japan. During the year 2016 he wanted to experience the realisation of 9 different solo exhibitions in private galleries: in Italy in Venice, Milan, Bologna and Verona, in Austria in Graz and Vienna, in Germany in Constance, plus the presence in two solo exhibitions in art fairs in Verona and Padua. During 2016, the collaboration with Marco Orler, born from a mutual personal esteem, also took shape. These exhibitions have been designed for different spaces outside of considerations of prestige alone, but each one important for getting to know different places, ways, human values and professionalism. 2017 will not have a continuity with the 2016 galleries but will see the first important exhibition engagement with the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate from 11 March to 30 July where he will have the opportunity to make official his Foundation/Museum Marcello Morandini. At the beginning of this year he held an important exhibition at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice; he is currently working on the Marcello Morandini Foundation, which was set up in 2016, on the restructuring of its headquarters in Varese, which will also be operational as a museum, and on the production of the challenging autobiographical volume/catalogue raisonné.