Genoa exhibition celebrates Piermario Ciani's multifaceted art

A new exhibition in Genoa, curated by Ferruccio Giromini, honors the late artist Piermario Ciani (1951–2006), a prolific yet underrecognized figure in contemporary art. Ciani, born in Bertiolo and based in Udine, began his career at 18 as a photographer for a local newspaper, later documenting the Pordenone new wave/punk scene The Great Complotto through his Ritratti Naoniani. He was an early experimenter with xerography, alongside Bruno Munari, and from 1980 engaged in Mail art, organizing Strane corrispondenze (1989) with 100 participants and Interazioni postali (1998) with over 600. With Vittore Baroni and Massimo Giacon, he co-founded the multimedia project TraX (1981–1987), involving 500 artists and producing vinyl, cassettes, magazines, and performances. In 1984, he pioneered Fax art by connecting a fax machine at the Festa Nazionale dell'Unità in Pavia to a Canadian gallery. Ciani later co-founded AAA Edizioni (Artisti Allibratori Associati) with Baroni, focusing on graphic design. He was a key figure in the Luther Blissett Project (1994), a media hoax, and created the collective pseudonyms Mind Invaders and Stickerman. In 2002, he launched FUN-Funtastic United Nations, a project involving stamps, banknotes, and artifacts from fictional nations. Ciani's last work, a stamp sheet titled Game Over (2006), reflected his self-irony in the face of terminal illness. The exhibition, titled "Piermario Ciani. In conserva," runs at Prisma Studio in Genoa.