I was born in Milan in 1965 and trained as an artist in Milan and New York, studying at Liceo Artistico Statale (1979-1984), at the N.Y. Studio School (1985-1986), at the Academy of Brera (1986-1989), and N.Y. University (1989-1990) but above all I spent time around other artists. I have lived in Venice with Luca since 1992, spending regular periods on the island of Pellestrina. 

My entire trajectory has been defined by encounters that have taken place over the years. This is why I would like to start by listing my family relationships and defining who each person is in a few words. I will try to highlight the element in each of them that has embedded something in my core. My father (Piero Morganti), a journalist and union leader who defended workers, expressed his essence by writing an extensive diary that covered the entire arc of his life. My mother (Mia Mendini), a teacher and feminist, was concerned with feminist thought and set up various groups, sparking discussions and group works. My Uncle Sandro (Alessandro Mendini) was an architect and designer who thought and wrote a lot alongside his visual and design work. In one of his myriad reflections, I found these words: ‘All of my intellectual and cultural action is based on my existence and is sentimental’. Aunt Mini (Marieda Boschi Di Stefano), my grandmother’s sister, was a ceramicist and collector of modern art. Together with her husband she continued the collection that her father had begun and made it public by bequeathing the museum that resides in the house where I was born and raised in Milan. It was she who had me touch my first substance – clay – with my hands and feet when I was a child. My husband Luca (Pes) is a historian. He studies the history of the present, often with reference to the historical past, observing the situation and basing his research on both oral sources and archival ones. He dedicates a lot of his time to teaching, creating micro-communities of students and teachers from all over the world. Finally, and only in order of apparition, my son Piero (Pes), who was born in 2001 and who I would prefer not to define in any pre-established way. He will gradually find the path to self-realisation and self-determination, just as I have tried to do, possibly finding a connection with my story.
 
It has always been fundamental for me to attend courses and connect with other artists. The artists/teachers I met during my training who have contributed to creating the foundations of my thinking include: Carmengloria Morales, who with her ‘Diptych’ resolved the coexistence of doing and thinking about painting in the work itself; Frederic Matys Thursz who brought before our eyes the dense and physical substance of paint; and Angiola Riva Churchill, who through her total dedication to her students gave us faith in the possibility that the artist’s gesture could be pushed even further and prolonged indefinitely. Then there are all the friends/artists of different generations with whom I have shared or continue to share reflections, as well as work and life spaces. Over the years I have collaborated with many artists; we invite each other to participate in projects and we follow each other’s work. They include the following, to name just a few: Carla Accardi, Stefano Arienti, Valentina Berardinone, Luca Bertolo, Simon Callery, Lawrence Carroll, Alice Cattaneo, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Bruna Esposito, Melania Fusco, Mark Harris, Massimo Kaufmann, Joyce Kozloff, Andrea Kvas, Marta Magini, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Cesare Pietroiusti, Giordano Pozzi, Lucio Pozzi, Toni Romanelli, Mariateresa Sartori, Lucia Veronesi, Serena Vestrucci.
 
Between 2002 and 2012 I coordinated the ’Wednesday meetings’ in Venice, first in my studio and then at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. These were weekly meetings exclusively for artists, in which each week one of them would talk about their work and reflect on it together with their peers.
 
I have created various artist’s books that I consider places in which to share experiences with others.
My published works include: Storia di un quadro (2006) with Diario di una poesia by Barry Schwabsky; Un diario tira l’altro (2010) in which my painted diaries sit alongside my father’s written ones – I also invited other writers to write about diary writing; Mi aiuti a capire cosa sto facendo? (2014) is the question a mother asks her son and is the title of the book I wrote together with my son; in Il colore succede, non si provoca (2016) the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy reacts to the colour and the thinking about the forming of the colour, responding in his own words; Diari tra diari (2019) is the result of the residency project in which I asked young artists and various authors to reflect on the theme of the diary; in L’appropriazione indotta (2024), which involved the participation of a patron, the archivist and the legal consultant of the archive, I tried to show when the conditions can be created for an artist to pass their gesture onto someone else, not only without feeling overwhelmed but actually feeling a general leavening.
 
Thinking about an exhibition means finding a way for your world to leave the intimate space of the studio and make it exist in a broader space, which involves others and is marked by everyone’s story. Since 1983 I have exhibited in Italy and abroad in private and public spaces officially designated for art (although this is not always the case), occasionally even outdoors. I have often related with places that have powerful symbolic, artistic, historic and architectural connotations, for example a museum of ancient art, religious buildings, a deconsecrated church, a school, a café, a garden, a home, a house museum and so on.
Since my first solo show at the Florence Lynch Gallery in New York in 1996 and my first institutional show at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice in 2006, a series of monographic shows have taken place at the following: the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice in 2008, the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona in 2010 and a series of group shows where my work was placed alongside that of other artists, including: at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1993, at the Kunstverein in Ludwisburg in 2006, at MAMbo in Bologna in 2013, at the Fondazione Testori di Novate Milanese in 2014 and 2019, at the Accademia Reale di Spagna in Rome in 2015, at the GAM in Turin in 2017 and 2018, at the GNAM in Rome in 2021 and at the Milan Triennale in 1994 and 2023. 
The first solo show in which the question of the archive was brought up was curated by Enrico Camprini at the Galleria 'de Foscherari in Bologna in 2024 and the first important anthological exhibition in an institution was the one curated by Elena Volpato at the GAM in Turin in 2024.
 
My relationship with theorists, philosophers, writers, critics, art historians and artists, intended as an open dialogue about the work and the process, is central to the development of my thinking. Following the work as it is being formed, writing about it, talking about it and curating exhibitions has helped me to understand what I am doing, opening up and amplifying the meaning. They include the following: Stefano Arienti, Cristina Baldacci, Marco Baravalle, Chiara Bertola, Luca Bertolo, Riccardo Caldura, Enrico Camprini, Cecilia Canziani, Alessandra Donati, Davide Ferri, Gabriella Giannachi, Barbara Garatti, Ilaria Gianni, Mel Gooding, Susan Harris, Paul Hills, Caoimhìn Mac Giolla Léith, Alessandro Mendini, Caterina Molteni, Stefano Mudu, Jean-Luc Nancy, Francesca Pasini, Andrea Pinotti, Rosella Prezzo, Raphael Rubinstein, Gabi Scardi, Barry Schwabsky, Carla Subrizi, Marco Tagliafierro, Angela Vettese, Giorgio Verzotti, Elena Volpato.
 
Verbalising and writing about my working practice is an integral part of my process. Various reflections and interviews have been published in books, catalogues, magazines and press releases. I have participated in conferences in which I talk about my work, believing in the importance of making the artist’s voice appear in first person. Because of this, I decided to include some texts and conferences in my archive, giving them the status of works. I particularly want to emphasise the work of writing, which is constantly undergoing transformations, and which is published in the ‘Self-portrait’ section of this site. Narrating in order to think about a practice, an action.

In 2010 I started working on my archive. In 2016 I made it accessible to the public through the online platform ‘An archive of time’ and in 2023 I founded the committee for the Maria Morganti Archive together with my husband Luca  Pes, my son Piero Pes, the archivist Barbara Garatti and the art historians Cristina Baldacci and Elena Volpato. In 2024 the archive formally became a nonprofit entity.

(Written in 2015, modified several times up to 2023. Updated in 2024)