Silvia Lucchesi

Zoè Gruni was born in 1982 in Pistoia, Italy.
She lives and works between Florence, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles.
Her work has been shown in many video-art festivals and exhibitions in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Germany, Brazil and the United States.

After obtaining her diploma in 2000 at the Pistoia Istituto d’arte, she was awarded a degree from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence where she attended Andrea Granchi’s School of Painting in 2006. Here she won the Studenti Eccellenti prize while showing her work at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. During her thesis research about Carol Rama’s work, she moved to Turin where she met the artist. In the same year she opened the Contemporary Art Space Studi8 in Pistoia in partnership with Cristiano Coppi and other artists.
Through the Centro di Documentazione per l’Arte Contemporanea of Pistoia she showed her work in many exhibitions, events and open studios in her hometown and she presented her first solo exhibition Balì Balle Baloo at Palazzo Balì, curated by Silvia Lucchesi. In 2010, one of her works was purchased by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia and presented at Palazzo Fabroni for the exhibition 1910-2010: un secolo d’arte a Pistoia (1910–2010: a century of art in Pistoia), curated by Lara Vinca Masini. She worked in some theatrical shows and her sculptures became the dramaturgic element of Conversazione con la Pietra (Conversation with the Stone), a show created in partnership with the actor and musician Piero Corso and the actress Tania Garribba (Festival Via Cava, Roselle, 2007).
In 2007, she started to collaborate with Galleria Il Ponte in Florence, which represents her in Italy, showing her work at many international contemporary art fairs. Between 2008 and 2010, with the support of curator Enrico Pedrini, she presented her solo exhibition metato/metacorpo at Galleria Il Ponte in Florence, Galerie Depardieu in Nice, France, Entropyart/In/Progress in Naples and the Teatro Sala Umberto in Rome. In Florence she worked with C.C.C.S. Strozzina in the Open Studios Project in 2009, which was part of the Toscana In Contemporanea project, in collaboration with the Centro d’ Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci of Prato. On This occasion, she gave some lectures for the American universities in Florence.
In 2010 she moved to California and started to collaborate with the Fu Xin Gallery in Shanghai which showed her work in some important international contemporary art fairs in Los Angeles and Miami. Between 2010 and 2012, Zoè Gruni developed Urban Jackalope, that involved musicians and young writers through the Art Space F_AIR of Florence and FUA (Florence University of America) curated by Lucia Giardino. In 2011 she became an artist-member of the O.C.C.C.A. (Orange County Center for Contemporary Art) in Santa Ana where she took part in the Ufora international project of relational art as a “luminary artist”.  In 2012 she was an Artist in Residency at Raid Projects in Los Angeles where she developed the Metropolitan Legend Project which she showed at LA Artcore. During her two years in the U.S., she showed her work in many group exhibitions in California (Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Torrance, Irvine, Santa Ana) and her work was selected for several biennials (Biennale Giovani Monza, Italy, curated by Franziska Nori; 54° Esposizione d’arte Internazionale La Biennale di Venezia – Lo stato dell’arte, Padiglione Accademie at the Venice Biennale; MexiCali Biennial at the Vincent Price Museum in Los Angeles; Sur Biennal at the TAM Museum in Torrance).
In 2012 Zoè Gruni moved to Brazil. While living in Rio de Janeiro she started to study Brazilian culture and the theme of nomadism. Contemporaneously she developed the video La Mérica in collaboration with video-maker Lyana Peck, showing it at the Italian Embassy in Brazil. In 2013 she participated in the exhibition Projeto Identidade where the Brazilian TV art program Estudio Movél invited her for an interview. In the same year she was Artist in Residency at FAAP in San Paolo where she developed the Projeto Boitatà. The multimedia work included a sound performance in collaboration with the group of experimental musicians, Tek Tek Gerbelier & Spitz, and Eurythmic dancer Marcia Ferreira; they performed at the Kunsthalle in San Paolo. After the residency, Galeria Progetti invited Zoè Gruni to show Boitatà in a solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. During the exhibition she started to collaborate with the artists Bernardo Damasceno and Xico Chaves, devising the event Palavrorio, an open discussion between anthropology and politics.
In 2014 her work was selected for the Premio Artistico Fondazione VAF, XI edizione – Posizioni attuali dell’arte italiana, in Germany. In addition, Galleria Il Ponte has invited her to present her second solo exhibition, Le Americhe, and will make a book, Zoè Gruni. 2004-2014 Mitopoiesi, on the last ten years of her works with texts by Franziska Nori and Xico Chavez.
In 2016 she created the intercontinental sculpture Boto Rosa: the tail of this legendary dolphin emerges from the waters of a fountain in the garden of the Museu da Republica, on the occasion of ArtRio’s Intervenções Bradesco, in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. At the same time, in Italy, the head emerges in the Ex Lucchesi Factories in Prato for La Torre di Babele curated by Pietro Gaglianò, in collaboration with the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art.
In 2017 Zoè made Carmen pra rua a revival of the performance Carmen (2007) at Centro Cultural Justiça Federal of Rio de Janeiro with Galeria Transparente.
Between 2017 and 2020 she teaches at the art school and museum institution EAV Parque Lage. The collective research project Segunda Pele: Híbrido, memória, reciclagem (Second skin: hybrid, memory, recycling), born from his courses, leads to a short film and a two-channel video installation, created in collaboration with the Russian-French director Alexis Zelensky.
In the same years she manages the occupied space Residência Felismina, creating projects aimed at enhancing children and street culture. Here she presents Aladina — a work homage to women’s resistance for the first time — in a sound installation with the verses of the Brazilian poetess Priscilla Menezes.
In 2020 Zoè Gruni returns to Italy.
In 2023 one of her works became part of the Collezioni del Novecento of Pistoia Musei, on this occasion, as part of ‘900 Talks – Body as a frontier, he presented the book Segunda Pele, Methylene editions, with Camilla Boemio. In the same year, in the AOC F58 space – Galleria Bruno Lisi, Rome, she exhibited, curated by Camilla Boemio, Fromoso, a video performance on the concept of anthropophagy, created in a Carnival float dump in the port area of Rio de Janeiro. The Il Ponte gallery in Florence, again curated by Camilla Boemio, presents her latest work Motherboard together with her previous works Fromoso and Segunda Pele.

Her works are part of private and museum collections including the VAF Foundation in Germany, the EAV Parque Lage of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the twentieth century collection of Pistoia Musei in Italy.