Steve Piccolo

Born in New Hampshire, 1954.
Lives and works in Milan.

After studying at Bard College and New York University, Steve Piccolo began his career in the 1970s playing bass in jazz groups and doing sound/performance in New York art spaces. In 1979 he started the Lounge Lizards with the Lurie brothers, a project which continued for about five years. Active since the mid-1970s in music, theater, performance art, sound installations, video and film soundtracks. His activities as a musician, composer, artist, curator and teacher have become too numerous, frequent and varied to list them all here. He has exhibited/performed at the Kitchen, Franklin Furnace, Environ, Squat Theater, PASS, La Mama, Issue Project Room, The Stone (all in NYC, from 1979 to 2010), Zona Gallery Florence (1982), Documenta 8 Kassel (1987), Japanese Institute of Culture Rome (2003), MAMCO Geneva (2003), Palazzo delle Papesse Siena (2003, 2005, 2007), Base Gallery Florence (2004), FRAC Bretagne (2004), Triennale Milan (2004-05-07-09), Villa Croce Genoa (2005),Swiss Cultural Center Milan (2005), Venice Biennial (with WPS1, 2005), Galleria Mazzoli Modena (2006), Turchin Center for the Arts Boone NC (2006, with residency), Trinity College Wales (2006), Venice Music Biennial (2006), ArtBasel Miami (2006), Kettle’s Yard Cambridge (2006), Moscow Biennial (2007), Swiss Cultural Institute Rome (2007), Spazio Mudima Milan (2007), Performa New York (2007), Istanbul Biennial (2007), Body Process Arts Festival Istanbul (2007), Spazio Oberdan Milan (2008), Venice Film Festival (2008), Plektrum Festival Tallinn (2008), Venice Architecture Biennial (2008), GAM (now MAGA) Museum Gallarate (2008), Casino Luxembourg (2009), Metropolitan Museum New York (2009), Neon Bologna (2009, 2010), Parco d’Arte Vivente Turin (2010), Galleria Continua San Gimignano (2010), Loop Festival Barcelona (2010), Festival of Imperial Gardens St. Petersburg Russia (2011) Isola Art Center Milan (exhibitions and local activism since 2002), Tirana Art Center (2011), Milano Film Festival (2011), among many others. Piccolo was sound curator at ArtVerona in 2008 and for the exhibition “Club 21” during Frieze 2010 in London. His collaborations on art video/performance/installation soundtracks include works with Adrian Paci, Luca Pancrazzi (including sound art group DE-ABC with Gak Sato), A Constructed World, Giancarlo Norese, Alessandro Mendini, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Gabriele Di Matteo, Francesco Fei, Marc Vincent Kalinka, Marzia Migliora and many others. He has published many records. He teaches sound art courses at Accademia Carrara Bergamo (since 2002) and NABA Milan (since 2005), and writes a monthly column for the magazine InSound.