About
Ivan Lupi (born 1972, Ferrara, Italy), is an Ōtautahi Christchurch-based artist. Masters in Queer Studies in Arts and Culture from the Birmingham University. Since 2001 Lupi has been an active member of the collective Amae with which he has taken part in various collaborations and exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the United Kingdom. Since 2016 Lupi started performing solo, showing his work in Switzerland, Lithuania, United States, India, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The most relevant events: ‘The Voice and the Lens’ – Whitechapel Art Gallery (London 2014), ‘The Slip of the Tongue’ – Palazzo Grassi Punta della Dogana (Venice 2015), ‘Transformations’ by LiVEART.US – Queens Museum (New York 2016), ‘Visualeyez Annual Festival of Performance art’ – Latitude 53 Art Gallery (Edmonton 2017), ‘Performance Art Week Aotearoa’ (Wellington 2018), ‘Performance Arcade’ (Wellington 2019), ‘Towards the forest’ – The Vivian gallery (Matakana 2019), ‘WTF!?’ – Museum of Transport and Technology (Auckland 2019), ‘Auckland Pride Festival’ – The Audio Foundation (Auckland, 2021), ‘Midsumma Festival’ – Testing Grounds (Melbourne, 2023).
These seemingly unrelated pieces, he says, “are instead connected as a body of work exploring feelings towards my personal history. As an immigrant dealing with memory, travel, returning and family, each piece is an attempt to answer to my ghosts, whilst building an ephemeral mausoleum in which I can take refuge and mourn.”
