William Xerra

WILLIAM XERRA lives and works in Ziano Piacentino. All of his art unfolds between the poetic and pictorial sign, even when in the seventies, with happenings, performances and video, he conceived his work in terms that were strictly "conceptual." It would then come to focus on the fragment, indicating the paths taken by and the experiences of daily life.

The artist`s style displays the known limits among which the work is realized. The "VIVE" of 1972 would accompany all of the artist`s work up to the end of the 1990`s. In 1978 he took part in "Venerezia," housed in Venice`s Palazzo Grassi; in 1980 in "Daily Metaphysics," at Bologna`s Galleria d`Arte Moderna; in 1983 at the XIII Festival di Sant`Arcangelo; in 1988 at the International Museum of Art for the "Olympics of Art," in Seoul; in 1990 at Milanopoesia in Milan. In 1993 he took part in the XLV Venice Biennale and at the Chicago Biennial at the Museum of Architecture and Design; and in 2001 in a group show at Gallarate`s Galleria di Arte Moderna, curated by Marco Senaldi and Emma Zanella. In 2002, at Milan`s Mudima Foundation, he presented the manifesto "Io Mento" ("I Lie"), read by Pierre Restany.

In 2003 he has a one-person show at the Centro Recoleta in Buenos Aires and at the Scuderie della Pilotta in Parma. In 2004 he has a one-person show, "Salire il Golgota" ("Going up Golgotha"), curated by Sandro Parmiggiani and Remo Bodei, at the Palazzo Magnani in Reggio Emilia. In 2005 a one-person show in the Chapelle Saint Jean Baptiste in Sain Jeannet (Nice).

In 2006, "Sentire con gli occhi" ("Hearing with Your Eyes") at the San Fedele Gallery in Milan; "Dedicata, Donata, Consegnata" ("Dedicated, Donated, Consigned") in Aosta, curated by Andrea Del Guercio; one-person show, "Il Segno dell`Imperfezione" ("The Sign of Imperfection"), for the Parma Poetry Festival; group show, "Primo Piano" at the Museo Pecci in Prato; XII Biennial of Sacred Art in San Gabriele di Teramo; and a one-person show dedicated to the poet Attilio Bertolucci at the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Mamiano di Parma. In 2007, a one-person show at the Tessitura Mantero Gallery in Como, curated by Roberto Borghi.