Pino Musi was born in Salerno in 1958. He lives in Paris.
Pino is a self-taught photographer who initiated his practice at the age of 14 by learning the black and white medium. His fascination for the camera obscura as well as assiduous visits, at least through the end of the eighties, to the Cantine, an avant-garde experimental theater, are central to his research into the linguistic and conceptual realms. Equally crucial was meeting director Jerzy Grotowski and Swiss architect Mario Botta, with whom he collaborated closely for years. At the time, Musi’s work showed multiple fields of interest such as anthropology, architecture, archeology or again, industry. Never an end in themselves, his distinctive experiments on form are actually part of a coherent project, and find their finest means of expression through the art of bookmaking, in particular artist books, for which he was internationally acclaimed on various occasions. In 1997, Mario Botta Seen by Pino Musi, published by Stoccarda da Daco Verlag and designed by Werner Jeker, received an award at the Frankfurt Book Fair from a jury that included members of the Stiftung Buchkunst and the Deutsche Bibliothek. That same year, he was selected by an international commission presided by Jean Petit to document and interpret Le Corbusier’s recently restored masterpiece, La Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp (FR). He also received a distinction for the quality of his architecture photography from the International Architecture Photography Prize. In 1998, Oxymoron, another project published with Daco Verlag, is shortlisted for Best Art Book at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 2003, in the context of “Modena per la Fotografia”, Musi’s Libro, a fantastic journey into the meanders of manuscripts, received the Oscar Goldoni Award for Best Photography Book published in Italy. In 2006, he was among the artists selected by Achille Bonito Oliva for the project, “Le Stazioni dell’Arte”, with sixteen photographs about the twenties and thirties displayed inside the subway stop Mostra d’Oltremare, in Naples. The series In Mollino’s Rooms was produced and presented by UniCredit Collection during Paris Photo in 2007. In 2008, he documented one of the largest mosques in the world, Sheikh Zayed Mosque, by invitation from Abu Dhabi’s Ministry of Culture and Heritage. Since 2011, he teaches for the Master of Higher Education on Contemporary Image at Fondazione Fotografia di Modena. In 2012, the Museo dell’Ara Pacis in Rome hosted the exhibition Revelations of the Form. The origins of Italy in Pino Musi’s photographs. His self-published photobook, _08:08 Operating Theatre, was included in the final selection of various international Best Photobooks lists in 2013. His photographs are in major private and public collections, including Fondazione Rolla, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, and Fondazione Fotografia di Modena.

www.pinomusi.com