Ian Michael Tweedy  |  Biography

Born in Hahn, Germany U.S. Military Base, 24/08/82
Lives and works in Milano, Italy.

Being raised with a temporary culture has left me with no specific feeling of nationality, and has forced me to adapt to various culture changes and land-bases. I have always dealt with adaptation so i use it to my advantage. It plays an important role both in my work and in daily life. I began by disseminating my images along the streets of Rome, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, and Dusselfdorf, among other cities throughout Europe and America. My signature was Dephect, which ended up in various graffiti magazines, and publications such as the book "graffiti world".

Now i often work on documents of the past, such as cold war maps, book covers, and pages torn from their bindings. I prefer to work on material that has a history, something that has already passed through many hands before reaching mine. Like before, i continue to work on the streets of cities and on public spaces, legally and illegally, although now working as a "muralist" with social images stolen from history, portraits of society borrowed from old, well known magazines such as "life" and "Panorama". As a kind of history hacker, I invent my own "time machine", a cross over of time and space, a series of cut-up associations of geographies and identities.

The large amount of images i have gathered in the past few years has become the basis of my pictorial and muralist projects.
My goal is to produce a sort of archive from a wall painting or drawing, a kind of puzzle where there are no rules and all the pieces fit together forming concrete imagery. I want to distort the information that was originally there, recreating the time of an object. To construct/deconstruct history to my liking, using the things which time and civilization has left behind, adding in its place whatever i see fit, observing and adapting to the changes of time.

Civilization, history, politics and identity are among some of the topics which fall under the context of my work as does a pair of buildings which fall under the impact of planes colliding into them. There are few exceptions and everything is a sacrifice. I choose what i want and take it. The process takes form as survival and i eventualy take over.

Solo shows

2009
– Nico Vascellari / Ian Tweedy, Monitor, Roma
– Olympia WA and a Portrait of a Picture, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano
– 70 Zeppelins, EX3 Centro per l’Arte Contemporaneo, Firenze

2008
– I’ll Meet You at the Rendevous, GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo

2007
– It’s only a matter of time, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano

2006
– A History out of context, Prometeogallery, Milano

Group shows

2009
– 7. Premio Furla 2009 - Progettare per un artista, BolognaFiere, Bologna
– L’immagine Sottile 03, GC.AC - Galleria Comunale d'Arte Contemporanea, Monfalcone
– Guardami. Il volto e lo sguardo nell’arte 1969-2009. Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano
– Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Bugada & Cargnel, Paris
– Fragile Currency, KLEMM'S, Berlin
– Usages du document, Centre culturel suisse, Paris

2008
– 50 Moons of Saturn, T2 - Torino Triennale, Turin
– Same Democracy, Neon>Campobase, Bologna

2007
– PragueBiennale 3, Prague,
Der Prozess. Memoria collettiva e storia sociale
– Cities from Below, Fondazione Teseco, Pisa

2006
– Capital Culture, Prometeogallery, Milan
– The People's Choice: Tools for an Art and Community Center, Isola Art Center, Milan
– Un lavoro fatto ad arte, Palazzo Te, Mantova

2005
– Who uses the space?, Isola Art Center, Milan

2004
– Gestures of Trans… Open Space gallery, Milan

Bibliography

2008
– Andrea Bruciati, -30.pratiche pittoriche in Italia, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea della Repubblica di San Marino
– Marco Scotini, “Ian Tweedy”, temporale, Edizioni Studio Dabbeni, n.66-67
– “Focus Italy:Artists dictionary”, Flash Art International, n. 260
– Roberta Tenconi, Mousse, “Introducing Ian Tweedy”, n.13
– "Dizionario della giovane arte Italiana", n.268

2008 (cont.)
– Roberta Tenconi, “Permission to stay”, Flash Art,  n.268
– Marco Scotini, Arte e Critica, “La Macchina del tempo”, n.53

2007
– Alessandro Rabottini, Work Art in Progress, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea Trento, n. 20
– Marco Scotini, temporale, Edizioni Studio Dabbeni n.64-65
– Marco Scotini, “Ouverture”, Ian Tweedy, Flash Art
– “Speciale Milano, Dizionario della giovane arte Milanese”, Flash Art, n. 263

2006
– Rosella Moratto, “Muresan/Tweedy”, Arte e critica n.4.
– Marco Scotini, Ian Tweedy, THEEND magazine, 2006
– Ian Tweedy, “Self-portraits”, tema celeste n.113