Gianfranco Baruchello

Throughout his extensive career, the Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello explored various mediums, ranging from painting to video, while conducting experiments at the intersection of art and agriculture. Baruchello was deeply engaged in the evolution of numerous art movements and the socio-political changes of the last century.

Biography of Gianfranco Baruchello

Gianfranco Baruchello was born in 1924 in Livorno, Italy.

Throughout the majority of the 1960s, he divided his time between New York, where he enjoyed the friendship of John Cage, and Paris, where he actively participated in the revolts of 1968 alongside friends such as Felix Guattari, Alain Jouffroy, and Jean Jacques Lebel.

In the early 1960s in Milan, he encountered and befriended Marcel Duchamp, who would later become his mentor. In 1962, he participated in the iconic exhibition 'The New Realists,' curated by Pierre Restany in New York.

In 1966, Baruchello's film "Verifica Incerta" premiered at both the MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York.

In the 1970s, following a decade of actively participating in and benefiting from the Parisian and New York art scenes, directly witnessing the emergence of Pop Art and the then-ascending art market, Baruchello made a deliberate shift. Choosing not to conform to the trends of the moment, he opted to define himself as an outsider, relocating to the Roman countryside in 1973.  

In 1976, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale, followed by his participation in Documenta in Kassel in 1977. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he dedicated himself to both artistic endeavors and the Agricola Cornelia land, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Fondazione Baruchello in 1998. This foundation is devoted to contemporary art, offering spaces for artists to create and, since 2000, specializing in archiving and cataloging.

Gianfranco Baruchello died in 2023, at the age of 98.

Gianfranco Baruchello's artworks are held in numerous collections worldwide, including the Centre National d'Art et de la Culture Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Collection of Werkraum Buchholz (Denklingen), GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (Bologna), Museo G. Fattori (Livorno), Migros Museum (Zürich), MoMA – Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York).