è nato a Napoli il 25 ottobre 1971.Ha studiato Fotografia al Cfp. Bauer di Milano e collaborato con il Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Villa Ghirlanda; è stato docente di Cinema, Fotografia e Televisione alla Facoltà di Architettura di Catania. Iscritto all’Albo dei Giornalisti Pubblicisti di Roma è laureato in Giurisprudenza.Ha esposto i suoi lavori nei musei e gallerie del mondo; nel 2012 è invitato alla 54 a Biennale di Venezia. Pittura, Fotografia, Installazioni sono i codici di riferimento.Usa nelle sue opere lastre di ferro e di acciaio. La città, le persone, i luoghi, lo spazio, le relazioni, la forma, i codici del linguaggio manifesto e non manifesto sono i punti fermi della ricerca. Il suo lavoro è incentrato sul ‘vedere’.Attraverso la combinazione dei materiali cerca un dialogo con le sfere profonde dell’essere, per dare forma ad un’ossessione di perfezione, per stabilire un qualche equilibrio tra guardare e sentire.

Stefano Ciannella was born in Naples on 25 October 1971.He studied photography at Cfp. Bauer of Milan and collaborated with the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Villa Ghirlanda; he was Professor of Film, Photography and Television at the Faculty of Architecture of Catania. He is registered in the Register of Journalists of Rome and has a degree in Law.He has exhibited his works in museums and galleries throughout the world; in 2012 he was invited to the 54th Biennale of Venice. Paintings, photographs, and installations are his code of referral. He applies in his works plates of iron and steel. The city, people, places, space, relationships, shape, and codes of language manifest and obscure the fixed points within his inquiry. His works are focused on ‘sight’.Through the combination of materials he seeks a dialogue with the spheres of profound being, to give shape to an obsession with perfection, to establish some balance between looking and feeling.

StefanoCiannella

– stefanociannella . com

personal id

exhibitions[selezione \ selection]

Personali \ Solo

2013, Milano - Italia, (The Format - Contemporary Culture Gallery) Reinforced Concrete, curatore Guido Cabib

2009, Napoli - Italia, (Villa di Donato) Impressioni, curatore Cynthia Penna\ART 1307

2008, Napoli - Italia, (Basilica della Pietrasanta) Stazioni

2007, Ortigia, Siracusa - Italia, (Facoltà di Architettura) Non - Places

2006, Rabat - Marocco, (Istituto Italiano di Cultura) Time

2005, Chiasso - Svizzera, (Galleria Cons Arc) Unicorno

Collettive \ Group

2013, Los Angeles - USA, (Art Seen Gallery) Celebrating 20 years, curatore Leonardo Ledesma

2012, Parigi - Francia, (Camera di Commercio) Cutlog, Contemporary Art Fair, Zone d’ombra

2012, Naples - Italy, (Isi Arti Associate) Light on shadows

2012, Naples - Italy, (Spazio Blanch) Underscore, curatore Marco Adinolfi

2011, Venezia - Italia, (54 a Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale) Silence

2011, Los Angeles - USA, (Art Seen Gallery) Bittoni Design Studio+Fabrik Magazine, curatore Leonardo Ledesma

2010, Los Angeles - USA, (LA Artcore) Latitude 34-40, curatore Cynthia Penna\ART 1307

2009, Napoli - Italia, (Villa di Donato) Proposte per una collezione, curatore Cynthia Penna

2009, Napoli - Italia, (PAN - Palazzo delle Arti Napoli) Lontano

2009, Napoli - Italia, (PAN - Palazzo delle Arti Napoli) Six, site specific performance

2008, Losanna - Svizzera, (Standard/deluxe) e/assenza, Milano

2005, Milano, Italia, (Triennale di Milano) Il racconto di un luogo, curatore Roberta Valtorta

2004, Milano - Italia, (Triennale di Milano) Multiplicity

2003, Milano - Italia, (Cfp. Bauer) nuove NARRAZIONI, curatore Roberta Valtorta

2002, Milano - Italia, (Urban Center, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele) La provincia di Milano e il suo territorio, immagini inedite e contemporanee, curatore Roberta Valtorta

18\19 there is not/too much space

Cells, tolerance spacesStefano Ciannella / 2013acrilico e olio su tela / 90x120 cmacrylic and oil on canvas / 35,4x47,2 in

there is not/too much space

there is not/too much space

there is not/too much space

Cells, open spaceStefano Ciannella / 2013acrilico e olio su tela / 90x120 cmacrylic and oil on canvas / 35,4x47,2 in

60\61 urban kites: interiors, not only

Urban kites: interiors, not only

volume 1,37 mt²

Love in a MercedesStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

Waiting for youStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

HomeStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

urban kites: interiors, not only

Family lifeStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

WishesStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

The observerStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

Cathedral in the desertStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

TheaterStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

urban kites: interiors, not only

Piccola annotazione\ A little noteStefano Ciannella / 2012inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 40x40 cmink on cotton, iron frame / 15,7x15,7 in[collezione privata / private collection]

Following not the main wayStefano Ciannella / 2012inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 90x90 cmink, acrylic on cotton, iron frame / 35,4x35,4 in

urban kites: interiors, not only

SintagmaStefano Ciannella / 2009inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 80x80 cmink on cotton, iron frame / 31,4x31,4 in[collezione privata / private collection]

FrameStefano Ciannella / 2009inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 80x80 cmink on cotton, iron frame / 31,4x31,4 in[collezione privata / private collection]

urban kites: interiors, not only

First nightStefano Ciannella / 2009ricamo su cotone, telaio in ferro / 80x80 cmembroidery on cotton, iron frame / 31,4x31,4 in

urban kites: interiors, not only

UfoStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

Walking CasablancaStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

urban kites: interiors, not only

Matta / CrazyStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

MultiplicityStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

urban kites: interiors, not only

Love in a MercedesStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

HolesStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio / negative on steel

HolesStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

urban kites: interiors, not only

Waiting for youStefano Ciannella / 2008negativo su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmnegative on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

urban kites: interiors, not only

CloserStefano Ciannella / 2013inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmink on cotton, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 in

urban kites: interiors, not only

Companie des wagons-litsStefano Ciannella / 2013inchiostro su cotone, telaio in ferro / 80x80 cmink on cotton, iron frame / 31,4x31,4 in

First nightStefano Ciannella / 2009ricamo su cotone, telaio in ferro / 80x80 cmembroidery on cotton, iron frame / 31,4x31,4 in

84\85 subsidences/somewhere decadence: gray wounds or full and empty

Subsidences/Somewhere decadence:gray wounds

or full and empty

volume 0,40 mt²

Il collasso del ponte: teoria di una ferita virtuale\ The bridge collapse: theory of a virtual woundStefano Ciannella / 2008mosaico digitale, stampa su carta cotone, su acciaio, telaio in ferro / 45x45 cmdigital mosaic, on cotton paper, on steel, iron frame / 17,7x17,7 inEdition 1 of 3

The bridgeStefano Ciannella / 2008stampa a colori su carta cotone / 20x30 cmcolor print on cotton paper / 7,8x11,8 inEdition 1 of 3

Stefano Ciannella’s work is based on a specific research over personal orientation among places

and relations, which are identified as potential spaces for experimentation. This personal kind of

research branches out almost inevitably to the outer world in search of a balance between what

one might define as “inside” and what is left “outside”.

His career as an artist begins with his studies at Cfp. Bauer in Milan – Educational Center for

Professional Photographers and Visual Communicators – where he came across Gabriele

Basilico’s photographic work and developed a plan based on “action”.

Stefano, indeed, mainly deepened the approach proposed by landscape photography, which

makes spaces, places and metropolises the core of an investigation focusing on the relationship

between man and space, as well as among individuals themselves. This idea soon led him to

understand that photography stands as a useful tool to either leave or record visual marks. The

image is, indeed, the true protagonist of his whole research through both photography and

painting. A sort of main obsession, which the artist is chasing without favoring any media, though

obstinately pursuing his will to record the act of seeing, that something which passes through the

retina and at the same time, once caught, becomes the one tangible joining point between the

artist and those who will encounter the work later.

The investigation of places, spaces and relations through the camera lenses developed into a

research, which is halfway between “project” photography and “staged” photography. Ciannella

employs reality according to his will, chooses to reflect upon the places that characterize himself by

primarily looking for a conceptual and then material balance.

During the making of his photo series, the artist goes through different steps: familiarization and

appropriation of the selected places, before the camera lenses find their independent gaze. He

defines this procedure as a fact-finding technique to investigate space: he repeatedly changes his

perspective until he gets to mark the margins of his area of interest. Only when such boundaries

finally turn into a cage, as conceptual and emotional reference points – which include protection

and coercion –, Ciannella goes back over a possible orientation in space. Those places he is

linking with become the set where he can produce a mind and action mapping, including his own

experiences and those of people going through, living and making the space under examination

real. This exploratory technique makes the work materialize into an architecture of landscapes and

places, spaces and relations, making photography a tool to understand universal realities.

Ciannella in this way gets off an articulated process during which images and works turn out to be

the fragments of a more complex reality, which is anyway continuously slipping away. The

contemporary artist’s natural need to employ different media – including photography, painting and

video – stands as an important turning point in Stefano Ciannella’s career. The employment of

photography is, indeed, a fundamental part in the research development, though reaching its

highest degree with painting. Thanks to the thin thread that binds them, photography and painting

succeed in working as symmetrical expressive tools, which at the same time stay independent

from one another because of their formal character.

The artist’s research over painting went through various stages before his practice could get to a

definite formal and conceptual stance. Starting from his first oil and ink works to get to the most

recent ones with acrylic and oil pastels, Ciannella makes canvas his room for experimentation. The

choice of the materials and the different production times (including both ink, which takes a good

amount of time to dry, as well as acrylic, which has instead immediate reaction) turn out to be

significant steps in a continual and always more conscious research path. Once again, Ciannella

starts out from his personal experience, his own past, everyday objects and materials, to carry out

a sublimation process, which has brought him to his present essential painting technique.

In his last works, indeed, he chose to work with acrylic and oil pastels. Acrylic, which dries quickly,

allows the artist to work on different layers, while oil pastels allow him to trace the centerpiece of

the whole work on the canvas: the conscious and responsible gesture marked by the white pastel

continuously comes out of the background every time the artist spreads black acrylic painting over

it. The oily material rejecting acrylic paint produces such awkward resistance reactions that

Ciannella links them to the private relation between conscious and unconscious dimension. Black

and white mean “the total color” to the artist: the mournful and strong character attached to black

alternates with the brightness and stability of white strokes, leading up to something close to a war

of titans. Once the boundaries of the canvas are circumscribed as a new space for coercion and

protection, Ciannella shores up the painting surface in order to be able to orient himself and start

working. The ritualism attached to the early production stages gives way to the creation of the

relation between expansion and restraint, which foster the entire research.

Ciannella’s most recent painting production – which goes through stratification, misting, reduction

and synthesis, before getting to its final state – might be defined as a sort of skeleton, X-ray or

framework which is laid bare by photographic research. Exactly because of this strong relation

among the media he is using, the work appears heterogeneous and articulated, pointing to a more

independent and flowing kind of research.

Places, people, relations, everyday events are all part of an articulated investigation process which

starts off from an intimate personal research to later merge with a macroscopic analysis of social

relations. This is the case of Cells, the painting cycle Ciannella produced throughout the course of

last year. The artist investigates the relationship dynamics among individuals sharing the same

physical and emotional spaces. The more or less conscious relationship with the Others marks the

distance which is found between balance, order and disorder in all individuals’ everyday lives. Cells

are same size circles, which are circumscribed by lines preventing contact. Therefore, they are

exactly cells, protecting and limiting spaces. At the same time, the artist, while playing with the

double meaning of the word “cell”, reveals not only the potential which is present in every single

unit, but also that limited space might turn into creative, generative and embryonic space. The

overwhelming power of life contrasts with the limitation of space, which protects and restrains. It is

clear, then, that the planning of Stefano Ciannella’s work turns into a method based on processes

aimed at portraying a “geography of actions” in order to describe the sociological strategies at work

within the relationships among individuals.

As a big eye, by observing outside society, places where people stay, and everyone’s private

emotional dimensions, Ciannella draws a map of the surrounding world while giving back

potentially indeterminate research possibilities, which the margins of the canvas only succeed in

limiting. At the same time, the artist does not objectify himself. He is, indeed, the starting point of

this investigation process, in a way which allows the minimalist character of his artistic production

to attest for the whole research process at work through its material form. PIA LAURO

PIA LAURO considers art the pole of attraction for all her various educational and work experiences. Born in Naples, she graduated in Culture and Administration of the Cultural Heritage from Federico II University. In 2003, at the age of 21, she spent a period of study/a semester at the Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz in Germany, thanks to a scholarship established by/from the European community. When she was back, she didn’t stop and began living between Naples and Rome, where she completed her studies in Art History at La Sapienza University. She has been working for several public and private institutions in the art field, cultivating her passion for the contemporary setting and being involved in the making of exhibitions, workshops and cultural projects. In 2011/12 she took part in the LUISS University Master of Arts. She currently collaborates with Studio Stefania Miscetti as assistant to the director.