Virginia Zanetti

Virginia Zanetti (Fiesole, 1981) is an artist and lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. She graduated with honours in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and went on to specialise and obtain a master’s degree in art education. Her work has been exhibited at biennials such as Manifesta 12 (in 2018) and 13 (in 2020) and in Italian and foreign institutions for culture and contemporary art such as the Pino Pascali Foundation in Polignano a Mare, the MAN in Nuoro, the CCC Strozzina in Florence, the CAC Pecci in Prato, the Mac in Lissone in Italy, the Kunsthalle in Bern, the Italian Cultural Institutes in New Delhi and Zurich, the MOG Museum in Goa in India, the Frederick Layton Gallery at MIAD, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the USA, and the Kaunas Picture Gallery of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum in Lithuania.
Her works are part of permanent public collections such as the MADRE Museum in Naples, the MAMbo in Bologna, the MAN – Museum of Art of the Province of Nuoro, the Civic Museums of Pino Pascali in Polignano a Mare; and private collections such as the Morra Greco Collection and the Optima Collection in Naples. She has won awards such as the 2015 Movin’up Award from MIBACT and the International Competition for Artists for the creation of permanent works of art for the Palace of Justice in Florence (2017), the Maccaferri First Prize for photography at Arte Fiera, the Smartup Optima 2019 Prize in Naples and Level 0 at ArtVerona in the 2020 and 2021 editions. Several public and private institutions have commissioned her to create permanent works in collaboration with local communities, such as the municipalities of Mulazzo and Montemitro and the A Cielo Aperto project in Latronico. Her work – together with her texts – has appeared in publications such as A Cielo Aperto (2016) and Breve storia della curatela (2020) by H. U. Obrist (Postmedia Books, Milan), as well as in trade magazines such as “Artribune”, “Espoarte”, “Exibart”, “Flash Art”, and in newspapers such as “La Lettura” in “Corriere della Sera” and “La Repubblica”. She is co-founder of Estuario Project Space in Prato and Laboratorio del Futuro, a discussion platform where intellectuals from various cultural fields meet and debate with citizens on the main issues of our time.