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Giuseppe Modica was born in 1953 in Mazara del Vallo (TP- Italy). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. In 1986 he moved to Rome, where he currently lives and works and holds the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. Author "metaphysically new" (D. Micacchi), he occupies a very specific place in contemporary artistic culture. He has exhibited in Italy and abroad in prestigious retrospectives and museum exhibitions, appreciated by critics such as Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, Claudio Strinati, Janus, Guido Giuffrè, Vittorio Sgarbi and by writers such as Leonardo Sciascia, Antonio Tabucchi, Giorgio Soavi, Massimo Onofri , Roberto Calasso.
We highlight the most significant personal exhibits in museums and important private galleries:
- 1986-1989-1993 - personal exhibitions at the "La Tavolozza" Gallery in Palermo, with texts by Bruno Caruso, Vittorio Sgarbi, Corrado Sofia, Giorgio Soavi, Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco
- 1989 - solo exhibition at the Jannone gallery in Milan with L'ammodicazione del sogno, text by Vittorio Sgarbi;
- 1991 - personal exhibition Le stanze inquiete(The uneasy rooms), curated by M. Fagiolo dell’Arco with text by Janus, at the Tour Fromage of Aosta;
- 1993 - anthological exhibition, at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, with texts by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Cesare Vivaldi;
- 1996 - solo show in Milan, Appiani Arte 32 Gallery, with text by Marco Di Capua;
- 1997 - anthological exhibition curated by M. Goldin, with texts by Guido Giuffrè, Claudio Strinati, Massimo Onofri, Luigi Burzotta, in Treviso, Casa dei Carraresi;
- 1999 - XIII Art Quadriennale, Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome; in the same year he exhibited in the solo show at the Inter Art Galerie Reich, Cologne (Germany);
- 2000 - solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in Utrecht (Holland);
- 2002 - La luce e la luce e la luce, retrospective exhibition curated by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Mazara del Vallo, Palazzo del Seminario, with texts by Giorgio Soavi, Antonino Cusumano, Nino De Vita;
- 2004 - at the Vittoriano, Rome, retrospective exhibition “Riflessione” come metafora della pittura (“Reflection” as a metaphor for painting) curated by Claudio Strinati; in the same year, retrospective exhibition Piero ed altri enigmi curated by Giovanni Faccenda, at the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Arezzo;
- 2005 - L’enigma del tempo e l’alchimia della luce, ( The enigma of time and the alchemy of light), retrospective exhibition curated by Aldo Gerbino at the Loggiato di San Bartolomeo, Palermo;
- 2007 - La realtà dell’illusione-Opere 1983-2007, retrospective exhibition curated by Guido Giuffrè, at the Convento del Carmine Galleria Civica in Marsala;
- 2008 - Roma e la città riflessa, solo exhibition curated by Claudio Strinati, at Palazzo di Venezia, Rome;
- 2010 - Inseguire la Pittura. Giuseppe Modica opere 1999-2010 (Chasing painting. Giuseppe Modica works 1999-2010), retrospective exhibition curated by Laura Gavioli, Potenza, Civic Gallery of Palazzo Loffredo
- 2011 - 54 International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Venice, Italy Pavilion, Corderie Arsenale, chosen by the literary critic Massimo Onofri;
- 2012 - he was invited to the review: Dopo de Chirico. Artisti metafisici italiani contemporanei(After de Chirico. Contemporary Italian metaphysical artists) at the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen (Germany) with text by Gerd Lindner;
- 2014 - The Italian embassy in Canberra (Australia) permanently exhibits three important works and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs includes three works, among the most significant of his research, in the Contemporary Art Collection of the Palazzo della Farnesina;
- 2015 - solo exhibition Luce di Roma, curated by Roberto Gramiccia, at the Galleria La Nuova Pesa in Rome and in the same year a solo exhibition on the theme of Mediterraneanness at the Galleria Sifrein in Paris: La melancolie onirique de Giuseppe Modica, text by Giovanni Lista;
- 2016 - curated by Donatella Cannova and Sasha Grishin are the exhibitions in Sidney, Camberra and Melbourne ( Australia), promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute;
- 2016 - on May 6, curated by Marcello Fagiolo, the triptychLa Crocefissione di Luce (The Crucifixion of Light), specially painted for the Mother Church by Ludovico Quaroni in Gibellina (TP), will be inaugurated with the patronage of the Orestiadi Foundation, the Diocese of Mazara del Vallo and the Municipality of Gibellina.
- 2017 - is invited by the Chinese National Academy of Beijing to exhibit 10 large works at the Phoenix Art Exhibition China - Europe in the museums of Fenghuang. He was awarded the "Best Figurative Painter Artist" award with the acquisition of the work in the Museum.
- 2018 - April - always in the civic museums in Fenghuang, he is invited to exhibit a series of works as part of a review on Italian Art which involves the Academies of Fine Arts in Rome, Florence and Milan.
- 2018 - September - solo exhibition La luce ricorda curated by Giorgio Agamben and Zhang Xiaoling as part of a review of four solo shows by two Italian painters (Giuseppe Modica and Ruggero Savinio) and two Chinese painters (Zhang Yidan and Tan Yongli) at the Beijing National Academy of Painting.
- He is invited to exhibit in the China-Italy engraving exhibition: Dialogue, edited by Luo Guirong, in the Museum of the Yinchuan Municipality (China);
- Contemporary Art Exhibition from Italy Beyond The Horizon, curated by Zhang Yidan with the artistic direction of Gao Jing, at the World Art Museum in Beijing;
- 2019 -He is invited to the 4th International Artistic Festival on the Silk Road in Quanzhou (China);
- 2020 - The large-scale work La via della seta-Il mondo in una stanza (The Silk Road-The world in a room) is present in the traveling exhibition The Belt and Road organized by the National Academy of China in Beijing and by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China.
2021 - Under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the Leonardo Sciascia Foundation, the retrospective "Atelier – Giuseppe Modica opere 1990-2021" is presented at the Hendric Christian Andersen Museum, curated by Giuseppina Di Monte and Gabriele Simongini. The studio, in its ancient meaning of labor-oratorium, is the thematic subject and poetic place where visual thought takes shape and materializes in painting.
2022 - Worthy of note is the solo exhibition Schema and Trascendence, curated by Chen Jian and Ying Yinfei, at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, the capital of the coastal province of Zhejiang (China).
2023 - He is invited by the critic Giuseppe Appella to participate in the exhibition "And My Homeland Is Where the Grass Trembles. Homage to Rocco Scotellaro" at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome.
2024 - From April 22 to September 15, 2024, the exhibition "Giuseppe Modica. Mediterranean Routes - Circular Vision," curated by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte and Gabriele Simongini, will open to the public at the Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum. The exhibition is the result of the call for proposals “PAC 2022-2023 - Plan for Contemporary Art" by the Directorate General for Contemporary Art and Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, which allowed the Museum to acquire two paintings: "Refractions. Atelier" (2020) and "Melancholy and the Mediterranean. Circular Vision" (2017).
From November 22 to 25, the Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum will present the two works during the event "Rome, Art in the Cloud. International Fair of Modern and Contemporary Art. La Nuvola EUR."
2025 - Participates in the group exhibition "Paesaggio d'autore al tempo del covid," curated by Carlo Alberto Bucci, which showcases works created during the year of confinement due to covid, which he published in La Repubblica in a column with the same title as the exhibition.
Between May and July, he exhibits the large triptych "Navi da guerra in transito" (Warships in Transit) from 2022 in a solo exhibition at the Blue Gallery in Venice.
