Enrico Pedrini

Enrico Pedrini (15 January 1940 Montesano di Filighera – 19 April 2012 Genova) was an academic, theorist and collector of Conceptual Art. He also taught epistemology in Italy.

Research and curation

He placed particular emphasis on the work of Bernar Vernet, Art and Language, and Victor Burgin. Pedrini’s collection is focused on Dada, Fluxus, Minimal Art, Arte Povera, Vienna Aktionism, and Graffiti Art. His books and articles examined issues in Anthropological Art, Conceptual Art, and Possibilism, and include John Cage, Happenings, and Fluxus (1986) and The Quantic Machine and the Second Avant-Garde (1991) in which he discusses the relation between quantum theory and the visual arts movements of the 1960s.

Pedrini studied the interaction of dissipating systems, chaos theory, and new potentials of art. He curated a number of international exhibitions, in venues such as Studio Oggetto in Milan, the Persano Gallery in Turin, the MAMAC in Nice, and the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in New York City. In 1995 he curated, with Wolfgang Becker, the Taiwanese Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale.

Selected bibliography

Irreversibility and the Avant-Garde: an Essay on Physics and Modern Culture, 2004, (ISBN 1-893207-02-1)