Valerio Rocco Orlando (Italy, 1978) is an artist, a PhD candidate in Engineering-based Architecture and Urban Planning at the Sapienza Università di Roma, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Basel.
Through practices ranging from workshops to video installations, he conceives art as a process of mutual knowledge and understanding. The heart of his research is the exploration of osmosis among institutions, museums, academia, and the social sphere.
Over the years he has activated fruitful collaborations with philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, composer Michael Nyman, artists Gilbert & George, Ugo Rondinone, and Liam Gillick, actors Saleh Bakri and Alba Rohrwacher, sociologist Boaventura De Sousa Santos, and psychoanalyst Luigi Zoja.
In 2009 he won the ISCP New York prize, in 2014 he received an International Artist Fellowship at the MMCA National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, and in 2016 he was awarded the Kunstpreis VAF Stiftung. He also won the Italian Council in 2020 and the Prix Carta Bianca in 2023.
His long-term project is founding an independent and transdisciplinary school in a state-owned building granted to him by the Municipality of Matera for thirty years. This process-based research aims to explore a fresh perspective on the urban and pedagogical spaces shaped by artists together with local, self-organized communities in the Global South.
His works are held in public and private collections, including: A. M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana; Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; La Galleria Nazionale, Rome; MACRO, Rome; MAGA, Gallarate; Mart, Rovereto; Museo del Novecento, Milan; MUSMA, Matera; Nomas Foundation, Rome; VAF Stiftung, Frankfurt am Main; Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese.