Antonio Syxty was born in Buenos Aires. He lives and works in Milan since many years.

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1976-1979

Since he was seventeen years old he trained himself in the late '70s on visual and avant-garde poetry practices, and conceptual art. In those years he started an art project dealing with site-specific performance and art exhibitions, inspired by conceptual and behavioral art, concerned and related to situationism in art. He was deeply impressed by a strong fascination with the work of Sol LeWitt, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kossuth, Walter De Maria, John Baldessarri, On Kawara, Joseph Beuys., Vito Acconci and many others among them. While he was at High School he wrote an essay about visual and avant-garde poetry practices in Italy from 1940 to 1974. In those years he began to produce the artworks of visual poetry and abstract and assemic writing on paper and canvas.

In 1976 he won a scholarship from the AFS American Field Service and spent one year in the United States.

While he was at Portage Central High School in Michigan, he takes an active part in American post-modern art and drama, continuing his personal research into avant-garde visual scriptures.

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1980-1985

At the end of High School he decided not to attend the university but to devote himself to his artistic work with the first site-specific installations made and produced by the Autumn Music Festival of Como.

Interested in the process of falsification of identity decides to attend to the Drama School "Piccolo Teatro" of Milan becoming a theatre director and studying the process of falsification of actor’s interpretation.

At the beginning of the 80s, he developed a project to falsify his identity, creating fake news about his life and career and spreading them over all media involving fashion magazines, design galleries, comics fanzines, television programs and newspapers or magazines in general.

He is invited to numerous festivals and performances exhibitions in Italy and abroad (Milan, Como, Modena, Florence, Naples, Rome, Ferrara, Vienna, Locarno, London and others).

In these years he collaborates and / or realizes performance projects with / for Alessandro Mendini, Nanda Vigo, Studio Azzurro, Metamorphosi, Andrea Branzi, Occhiomagico, Casa Vogue, Studio Alchimia, Domus Academy, Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Cinzia Ruggeri, Fiorucci (San Babila shop), Correggiari, Max Mara, Goldie and many others.

From 1979 to 1982 (from 22 to 25 years) he performs more than 23 performances between art and theater / performance and site specific installations. Also in the 80s he creates the Antonio Syxty Fan Club and the Oh-Art project! At the same time he continues his study on the practice of theater as a falsification of reality and becomes a professional theater director.

 

1986-1995

In the 80s his career moved progressively towards live theatre performances. In this way theatre practice  became for him an art project with endless drift and behavioral variations related to the exchange of identity, dealing with true and fake reality. Since then his work changed in the profession of director. At the beginning he worked for  theatre and after he became also a movie and television director, developing his skill for video installation, public events and shows, gaining a formal attitude to be a director of spaces and behaviors.

He also worked as a director for RAI - Italian Television State Broadcasting Company and for private broadcasting group as Mediaset, and for advertising, corporate film-making, fashion, live concerts and any other forms of live event.

As a theater director he has staged more than 70 pieces by classical and contemporary authors: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Seneca, P.P. Pasolini, G.Testori, W. Shakespeare, A. Miller, H. Pinter, E. Ibsen, A. Checov, J. Joyce, F. Schiller, H. von Kleist, M. Puig, P. Claudel, C. Goldoni , P. Bruckner, Marivaux, R. Musil, JV Vondel, RDLaing, M. Crimp, and many others.

He has created, edited, conceived, or even coordinated communication projects for fashion, design and industry collaborating with many companies including IBM, Bang & Olufsen, Bank of Rome, Sony, Motor show, Gardaland, Buena Vista Home Video, Extè, and various communications companies.

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1996-2001

In 2001 he joined the artistic direction of the Teatro Litta in Milan.

He also worked as a film director (making short films and feature films and numerous music videos) and radio broadcasting.

In the 2000s he returned to work on visual art creating his own atelier in the attic of the Teatro Litta at Palazzo Litta in Milan. In the meantime his son finds in another house’s attic early artworks on paper related to the period of visual writing (1977-79), which become part of the so named  The Improbabile and Famous Antonio Syxty Archive,

 

2002-2017

He continues to work as a production theater coordinator for MTM - Manifatture Teatrali Milanesi, powered by the Palazzo Litta Foundation in Milan, and also creating theater / performance projects.

In 2016, with the publishing house Yard Press and for the care of Flora Pitrolo, the volume "Syxty Sorriso & Altre Storie" is published by the Palazzo Litta Foundation which includes the artistic career 1978-1982 with a preface by Flora Pitrolo, Alessandro Mendini and Joe Kelleher and testimonies of friends and artists. The publication is considered a performing book based on a very small part of The Improbabile and Famous Antonio Syxty Archive, which is still being reorganized, conserved and compiled in anticipation of a future exhibition of materials and performances.