Born in Florence in 1955, Francesco Bonami has lived and worked in New York since 1987.  He was most recently nominated curator of the 75th edition of the Whitney Biennial, which will take place in New York in 2010. He works with Francois Pinault and co-curated Mapping the studio with Alison Gingeras, which was the opening exhibition of Pinault’s Venice based exhibition space Punto della Dogana as well as the new exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in June 2009. Again for Francois Pinault, he curated the exhibition Italics. Arte italiana fra tradizione e rivoluzione, 1968-2008, organised by Palazzo Grassi in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. From 1999 to 2008, he was Manilow Senior Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and, from 2004 to 2008, Artistic Director of Villa Manin Centre of Contemporary Art (Udine). In 2003, he was Director of the 50th Edition of the Biennale di Venezia. Among the more recent exhibitions that he has curated is Rudolf Stingel’s first retrospective at the MCA and thereafter travelling to the Whitney museum in New York and, again at the MCA, the world’s first ever Jeff Koons retrospective exhibition (2008).
Francesco Bonami is the contemporary art editor for Domus magazine and curator of the Supercontemporanea book chain, published by Electa. He regularly writes for Italian publications such as Il Riformista, Vanity Fair, Panorama First, La Gazzetta dello Sport and the national daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera as well as international publications such as the New York Times Magazine and Art Forum. Among the books that he has had published are Echoes: Contemporary Art at the Age of Endless Conclusion published by Monacelli Press in 1996; Cream in 1998 and a monograph on Maurizio Cattelan in 1999, both published by Phaidon Press. His first novel Lezioni di Fumo was published by Marcilio Editore in 2005. His book about contemporary art, entitled Lo Potevo Fare anche io (I could have done that too), published by Mondadori, has and continues to be a best seller.
He has recently published a new book, written with
Luca Mastrantonio, entitled Irrazionalpopolare, published by Einaudi and Dopotutto non è brutto, again published by Mondadori, which came out in March 2009.