Born in Venice in 1956, Maurizio Pellegrin lives in Venice and New York. A graduate of contemporary art, he studied literature and philosophy at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, then painting and sculpture at the Venice Accademia di Belle Arti, sociology at the New School of New York; and eastern philosophy at New York University. He teaches drawing and art criticism as part of the Fine Arts Masters course at New York University, as well as being the director of such courses in New York and Venice. He is also a teacher of sculpture and the phenomenology of the arts at Columbia University in New York. The author of 30 published works, the artist has held more than 131-man exhibitions and participated in almost 300 group shows in major museums and private galleries throughout the world. Maurizio Pellegrin arranges constellations of objects on walls; he compiles series of similar objects in combination with those that appear totally unrelated to them in terms of style, size or material. The juxtaposition of the fragments in his works gives rise to a landscape of desire. From his numerous travels, Maurizio Pellegrin returns with objects and images which – combined with rope, fabrics, padded canvasses, photographs and other material – serve to give body to the artist’s own work; each thing becomes a metaphor, a key to interpretation or to a wider vision of the world. Pellegrin’s is a composite universe of components and satellites that tend to come together in a single whole, whose energy is symbolised in numbers. For Maurizio Pellegrin, each work provides the chance to develop knowledge and maintain the subtle equilibrium which exists between soul and matter.