Elisabetta Benassi Italian, 1966

Elisabetta Benassi (Rome, Italy, 1966) 

Elisabetta Benassi was born in Rome in 1966. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Capital, she had her first exhibition in 1996 in Tor Bella Monaca, a Roman suburb.

Over the years, her work has focused on the cultural, political and artistic legacy of modernity, and on critiquing crucial issues of our time. By using various means of expression – installation, sculpture, photography and video – she has always aimed to emotionally engage and question the viewer, tracing past times, contemporary identity and the state of the present.

In 2001, she exhibited at the Berlin Biennale and in 2008, the artist presented the work “They Live We Sleep” at the XV Quadriennale nazionale d'arte in Rome. In the same years, she held several solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

In 2011, Elisabetta Benassi participated in the Venice International Art Exhibition with an installation presented at the Arsenale, “The innocent abroad”. She then returned to the city in 2013 for the Italian Pavilion, and in 2015 for the Belgian Pavilion with the “Personne et Les Autres” exhibition.

Among the most important art shows in which she has participated figure the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011, the Fondazione Merz in Turin in 2013, and the Galerie Jousse Entreprise in the French capital in 2015. The artist took part in the “It starts with the firing” at the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia in 2017 and in “Building and Dreaming”, curated by Francesco Bonami, in the Chinese district of Huangzhou. 

She lives and works in Rome.