BIOGRAPHY:

Roberto casti (Iglesias, 1992) is an artist and musician who works and lives between Milan and Iglesias, a Sardinian city in which he’s born. In 2015 he graduated in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. In 2017 he finished the M.F.A. in Visual Cultures in the same institute.

STATEMENT:

His artistic practice – that include different media like performance, video, installation, sound production and panting – it’s not focused on a formal knowability but rather on a constant and necessary interpretative and theoretical research on the reality seen as place of relationships and cohabitation. The key concept of his practice is the interdependence which indissolubly binds individual and collectivity, the human beings and the planet they live on, the audience and artwork or the artistic event.

To highlight these connections, the artist uses various linguistic “escamotage” based on the responsibility assumption of the artistic act, because of its collision with an Otherness, a different form of agency that allows the work to become a meeting point of collective synergies.

Two strands of Roberto Casti’s practice can be distinguished: the one inhabited from artworks connected with the “indeterminacy” aiming at an awareness of the surrounding world – these works are linked to environmental elements (water, light, dust) that undermine the anthropocentric idea of the human being;

the second strand is The Boys and Kifer, performative and music project founded by the artist in 2014 with the aim to create a fictional band that could investigate new ways of relationship through the mix of collective imaginaries and rituals. The project involved the collaboration with different artists, musicians and thinkers, giving rise to lives/performances in which the identities and the individual practices are aligned with the aim to generate community events.

Education:

M.F.A. in Visual Cultures e pratiche curatoriali, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan, Italy 

Bachelor degree in Painting, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan, Italy 

Exhibitions/Projects:

-2022 “Mal d’uve”

festival and group show curated by Scania (Alessia Baranello and Arianna Tremolanti) and Beatrice Roggero Fossati, Nizza Monferrato (AT)

-2022 “Cemento armato”

group show curated by Ilaria Leonetti, Ilaria Brianti e Sveva Crisafulli, Dora Collettiva, Via degli Imbriani 39, Milan (IT)

-2022 “There are more things”

solo show curated by Ilaria Leonetti, Sottofondo Studio, Arezzo (IT)

-2022 “Miliardi di detriti ci separano dalla nostra ombra”

performative project for Bastione, Villa Rey, Turin (IT)

-2021 Tenth edition of Premio Francesco Fabbri

collective show curated by Carlo Sala, Villa Brandolini, Pieve di Soligo (IT)

-2021 “Each Other Again”

project by The Boys and Kifer in collaboration with Osservatorio Futura and ViaGulli 37, Via Gulli 37, Turin (IT)

-2019  “Where is The Boys and Kifer? Part II”

project by The Boys and Kifer curated by the students of Visual Cultures during the exhibition “A Story that Was(n’t), Academy of Brera, Milan (IT)

– 2018 “Where is The Boys and Kifer?”

project by The Boys and Kifer curated by Roberta Pagani, Marsèlleria Permanent Exhibition, Milan (IT)

– 2018 “SPIMEoff”

project curated by Micaela Deiana with the collaboration of Compagnia B,

MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Nuoro (IT)

– 2018 “INTROITUS (Parte del Tutto)“

solo show curated by Bite The Saurus (Enzo Di Marino e Dalia Maini), Chiesa di San Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo, Naples (IT)

– 2017 – 2018 “Arcipelago Ovest”

group show (exhibition commissioners: Lorenzo Giusti, Anne Alessandri, Nakane Aramburu), FRAC Corse, Corte (FR)

– 2017 “Preferirei restare a casa oggi”

solo show curated by CURRENT, Dimora Artica, Milan (IT)

– 2017 “Our Fiestas are Explosions”

project by K-Gold Contemporary Gallery curated by Nicolas Vamvouklis, Municipal theatre of Mytilini, Lesvos (GR)

– 2016 “TOGETHER ALONE”

solo show curated by Chiara Spagnol e Corinne Cortinovis, PLASMA, Milan (IT)

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Performances with The Boys and Kifer

– 2022 “Each Other Again”

performance by The Boys and Kifer during Mal d’uve festival, curated by Scania (Alessia Baranello and Arianna Tremolanti) and Beatrice Roggero Fossati, Nizza Monferrato (IT)

– 2021 “Each Other Again”

performance by The Boys and Kifer in collaboration with Osservatorio Futura, Via Gulli 37, Turin (IT)

 – 2019 “Unmixed Reality”

performance by The Boys and Kifer during the program OGR You, OGR- Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Turin (IT)

 – 2018 “Teatrum Botanicum 2018”

curated by Giulia Mengozzi, PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Turin (IT)

– 2018 “Landing Experiment”

performance curated by Takecare with the collaboration of Ramdom,

Lastation, Gagliano del Capo (IT)

– 2017 “Dialogue with a robin (RMX)“

Performance by The Boys and Kifer in collaboration with the artist GianMarco Porru during the program of Academy Awards 16, Viafarini, Milan (IT)

– 2017 “The Great Learning”

Performance by The Boys and Kifer in collaboration with the artist Martina Brembati, curated by Marco Scotini, Triennale di Milano, Milan (IT)

RESIDENCIES/Workshops

– 2022 Lab for new imaginations

MACRO, Museo d’arte contemporanea di Roma (IT)

– 2022 UVA residency programme

Nizza Monferrato (IT)

– 2019 Workshop with Sardegna Film Commission and Film London – Flamin Fellowship

London (UK)

– 2016-2017 Academy Awards 16

Participatory training program, in collaboration with Boîte e Waiting Posthuman, Viafarini DOCVA, Milan (IT)

– 2013 Workshop by Cherimus (with Matteo Rubbi, Fiammetta Caime, Leonardo Chiappini, Michele  Gabriele, Jonathan Vivacqua)

Studio Guenzani, Milan (IT)