ARTWORKS CONNECTS
Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
Curatorial Residency Program in Athens: May-June 2026
Francesco Urbano Ragazzi is a curatorial duo founded in Paris in 2008 by Francesco Ragazzi (PhD) and Francesco Urbano (PhD). Their practice reconnects art with reality through exhibitions that extend beyond galleries and museums, exploring a broader concept of public space. Their approach is exemplified by a series of exhibitions curated in Venice on the occasion of the Biennale: “The Internet Saga” by Jonas Mekas (2015); “Hillary: The Hillary Clinton Emails” by Kenneth Goldsmith with the participation of Hillary Rodham Clinton (2019); “Adoration” by Pauline Curnier Jardin and the inmates of the Giudecca detention house (2022); and “Stitched Cosmos” by Jennifer West at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
The duo has also developed projects for major institutions worldwide, including including e-flux, School of Visual Arts, ISCP (New York), MMCA (Seoul), Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), CERN (Geneva), Maraya Art Centre (Sharjah), Castello di Rivoli Research Center (Turin), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome), Reykjavík International Film Festival, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, La Loge (Brussels), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Institut Français (Paris), Ruya Foundation (Baghdad), and Emirates Foundation (Abu Dhabi).
In the last five years, Francesco Urbano Ragazzi co-edited FUORI!!! 1971–1974, an award-winning anthology dedicated to the first LGBTQ+ magazine in Italian history; directed the 17th edition of the LIAF Biennial in Norway; and curated “Jonas Mekas 100!” in Italy, the international program celebrating the centenary of the legendary filmmaker with whom they had long collaborated. In 2025, Francesco Urbano Ragazzi was named the first Italian curatorial fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
The residency at ARTWORKS offers a particularly fertile context for further pursuing the duo’s research on the horizons of national representation in a historical moment marked by the global rise of nationalisms, and, in response to this, to reflect on how Mediterranean alliances can be strengthened.
