Tullio DeSantis

Tullio Francesco DeSantis (born 1948), also known as Tullio, is an American contemporary artist, writer, technologist, and teacher.

His work is informed by ancient and contemporary philosophy, science, and the relationship between art and life.

Tullio DeSantis began his career as a conceptual artist/writer by creating his regular column titled MINDSTREAM, which appeared in the underground press periodical, The Rip Off Review of Western Culture.

The publisher of this magazine was the Rip Off Press located in San Francisco in the early 1970s.

In 1975 he entered the San Francisco Art Institute, where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 1977.

Tullio's career as an exhibiting artist began before his graduation and continued in San Francisco through 1979, after which he moved back to the East Coast.

During his years in San Francisco, DeSantis' artwork was exhibited by ADI Galleries in San Francisco and Tokyo, Japan.

A work on paper by Tullio from this period was exhibited in Paper as Medium a series of national tours by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

His work from that time is represented in both public and private collections.

DeSantis moved back to the East Coast and took up dual residencies in Reading, Pennsylvania, and New York City, where he maintained a studio in Chelsea.

In New York his work was exhibited at the Katherine Markel and Getler Pall galleries.

Also in 1980, his work was exhibited by the New York Museum of Modern Art's Lending Service in a traveling exhibition titled Maps.

During the 1980s his work was represented by Marion Locks Gallery in Philadelphia.

In 1981 DeSantis began exhibiting his work in the Reading and Berks County area.

Among the local and regional exhibitions of note are the shows titled Local Color and Paper Pieces at the Freedman Gallery of Albright College.

In 1982, DeSantis was co-producer of the large-scale multimedia exhibit at the Reading Public Museum titled Mushroom Magic.

DeSantis's work from that exhibit included a series of color photographs and artifacts documenting the process of growing mushrooms for the commercial market, artworks on paper and a large acrylic-and-sand painting.

DeSantis mounted his first one-person show in New York City, titled New Worlds at the Tradition 3000 gallery in 1988.

From 1982 through 1990 Tullio Francesco DeSantis wrote on art exhibitions and aesthetics for the New Art Examiner, Chicago and at the same time served as art critic for the Reading Eagle/Reading Times newspapers in Pennsylvania.

It was in this period that the artist met and worked with Keith Haring.

In 1984 DeSantis received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship for his ongoing collaborative conceptual work with Keith Haring.

DeSantis' higher-education art-teaching career has spanned the period from 1987 to the present.

In 1987 he served as assistant professor of art at Alvernia College, Reading, Pennsylvania.

He has continued his teaching as an adjunct professor of art at Albright College, University of St. Francis, Joliet, Illinois, the MFA program of Vermont College, Norwich University, and currently at Reading Area Community College.

Tullio's "Life on a Mushroom Farm", appeared in the book Dreamstreets, Harper and Row, 1989, and has since been reprinted several times.

Tullio's personal and spiritual creative relationship with poet Allen Ginsberg yielded a number of works including a Ginsberg poem dedicated to Tullio DeSantis.

and a Ginsberg drawing published at www.poetspath.com.

The artist's exhibits from the 1990s include 1992's his Reading Lies part IV: Across the You-Niverse, a multi-media installation and performance piece hosted by the Freedman Gallery of Albright College.

This was followed another gallery-size multimedia installation, DeSantis' one-person show at the New Arts Program gallery in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, titled The Missing Link.

In 1990 the American Association of University Professors found and reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education that Tullio DeSantis had been improperly dismissed by Alvernia College (now Alvernia University) because of his criticism of the administration and that his rights of academic freedom had been violated.

This incident provoked the resignation of the college president, board chair, and the academic dean.

DeSantis' suit with the college was eventually settled out of court.

The settlement resulted in his being rehired.

Tullio Francesco DeSantis continued exhibiting his art in the early 1990s in a selected group of galleries including the Freedman Gallery of Albright College and the Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA.

Tullio's gallery-size installation work was continuously on view at the artist's studio from 1995 to 2004.

This magical-realist environment contained, among many interactive components, miniature reconstructed and painted electric trains, papier-mâché landscapes, and a multicolor and infrared light show recreating scenes seen during morning, afternoon, sunset, and night.

The long-running work-in-progress was titled The Project and was a tribute to both DeSantis' friend and collaborator, Keith Haring and DeSantis' paternal grandfather, Francesco DeSantis.

In 1998 and 1999 DeSantis published the first four chapters of this work in the Terminal Journal under the title, Reading Lies Dreaming, published by Eschaton, Chicago.

In 2016, the title was changed to "Nothing Dies" and the web site was moved to www.nothingdies.com.

Tullio DeSantis' internationally published writing includes a magical-realist story recounting the life of the Francesco DeSantis family and also the art, science, and craft of growing mushrooms for market.