Cesare Pietroiusti (Rome, 1955) graduated in Medicine in 1979 with a thesis in Psychiatric Clinic. His studies inspired him to found, together with Sergio Lombardo, Anna Homberg and Domenico Nardone, the Rivista di Psicologia dell’Arte (Journal of Art Psychology), whose first issue was published in 1979. The journal was created as a scientific publication of the Centro Studi Jartrakor, a gallery and experimental space founded in Rome in 1977 around the artist Sergio Lombardo, as well as a platform for the dissemination of the “Eventualist Theory”, which forms the theoretical basis of the Centre’s activities. A few years later, Pietroiusti became part of the Gruppo di Piombino and, in 1996, invited to the XII Quadriennale in Rome, he expanded his invitation first to artist friends and collaborators, and then to anyone who wished to participate in the exhibition.

Between 1997 and 2001, he was one of the coordinators of the “Oreste” artist residencies in Paliano and Montescaglioso. This evolving laboratory, which developed over the years, involved nearly 300 artists and curators. In 1999, the “Oreste Project” was invited by Harald Szeemann to participate in dAPERTutto at the 48th Venice Biennale, presenting a series of meetings, performances, discussions, lectures, and informal gatherings, with around 100 events involving more than 500 active participants. That same year, he received the Alinovi Prize. In 1997, he was one of the coordinators of the conference “How to explain to my mother that what I do is useful?” held at the Link Project in Bologna. He co-founded Nomads & Residents (New York, 2000), was a member of the Scientific Committee and co-curator of the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Ratti Foundation in Como (2006–2011). Between 2009 and 2016, he taught in the MFA program at the Art Institute of Boston – Lesley University. Since 2004, he has been a professor of “Visual Arts Laboratory” at IUAV University of Venice and, since 2021, at NABA in Rome.

Since 2015, he has been co-founder and president of the Fondazione Lac o Le Mon in San Cesario di Lecce.
Since 1977, he has exhibited solo or with other artists in private and public spaces, both traditional and unconventional, in Italy and abroad. In recent years, his work has focused especially on the theme of exchange and the paradoxes that can arise in the folds of economic systems and structures. Starting in 2004, he has carried out various performances, including: irreversibly altering other people’s banknotes; freely distributing tens of thousands of individually made and signed drawings; selling stories; ingesting banknotes at the end of an auction and returning them to the rightful owner after defecation; opening shops where the items for sale are banknotes and the “currency” used to buy them is the buyer’s gaze; organizing restaurants where, at the end of the meal, instead of paying, customers receive the amount listed on the menu; setting up exhibitions in which works are for sale not in exchange for money, but for ideas or proposals from visitors.

Among his recent exhibitions and projects are: Materia paterna, The Gallery Apart, Rome (2025); Tecnologie obsolete e processi di produzione semplici, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice (2024); Agenti patogeni e morfogenesi del disegno. Tremila opere in fieri, Spazio Murat, Bari (2024); Under the Spell of Duchamp, curated by Eva Brioschi, Fondazione delle Nogare, Bolzano (2024); Infinita infanzia, curated by Saverio Verini, Palazzo Collicola, Spoleto (2024); Mein letzter Wille / My Last Will, curated by M+M, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz and Casino Luxembourg (2023–2024); Più che opere, storie, Museo d’Inverno, Siena (2023); La collezione impermanente #4, curated by Sara Fumagalli, Fabrizia Previtali, Valentina Gervasoni, Gamec, Bergamo (2023); Relazioni (im)possibili. Il fil rouge da Piero Manzoni a oggi, curated by Demis Martinelli and Rosalia Pasqualino di Marineo, Museo della Stampa, Soncino (CR) (2023); Liquidi. Ryts Monet e Cesare Pietroiusti, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Mestre (2022); Spazio territorio. Quattro artisti in dialogo con Vincenzo Agnetti, curated by Giorgio Verzotti, Archivio Agnetti, Milan (2022); (in)visible fields. Space as energy, curated by Elena Forin, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice (2022); A Variable Number of Things, curated by Marie-José Sondejiker, West Den Haag, The Hague (2020–21); Money, Money, Money, curated by Elena Forin, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice (2021); Consegna all’artista una tua banconota, curated by Francesca Guerisoli, Fondazione Pietro e Alberto Rossini, Briosco (Mi) (2020).

His retrospective Un certo numero di cose 1955–2019, curated by Lorenzo Balbi and held at MAMbo in Bologna (2019–2020), was the winner of the 4th edition of the Italian Council.