Francesco Impellizzeri

Born in Trapani in 1958. Lives in Rome

Since the early eighties Francesco Impellizzeri has focused on artistic practices that use the body as a means of expression, starting from the protagonists of the seventies such as Luigi Ontani or Urs Lüthi and going all the way to the influence of film and television. He prefers photography and performance, both of which are used to bring out mass media strategies and the emergence of stereotypical roles and models. His research is characterized by a contamination of expressive means, through which he creates tableaux vivants, supervising the costumes, music, and direction and actually playing the characters he has invented, even if they are already well known. Taking on other roles becomes a way of prompting viewers to question themselves about the mechanisms through which they receive images. In recent years Impellizzeri has used drawing and painting, as in the cycle of the Pensierini, made by reconstructing the pages of elementary school notebooks, as a means for disseminating ideas tied to personal memory and collective events. (A.T.)