Giovanni Frangi was born in 1959 in Milan, where he lives and works.
After having received a diploma from the Brera Fine Arts Academy, he began his exhibition career in 1983 with a show at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan, titled Giovani pittori e scultori italiani, followed later in the same year with his first solo show at the Bussola, Turin.
He had an exhibition in 1986 at Galleria Bergamini in Milan: the catalogue contained an essay by Achille Bonito Oliva. This was followed by many solo shows in Italy and abroad, in both public and private spaces. These include: La fuga di Renzo, in the Sala del Cenacolo at Montecitorio (Rome, 1998); Il richiamo della foresta at Palazzo delle Stelline (Milan, 1999); Viaggio in Italia at Galleria dello Scudo (Verona 2001); Nobu at Elba at Villa Panza (Varese, 2004); View-Master at Galleria Poggiali e Forconi (Florence, 2006); Pasadena, a cycle of etchings presented at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Udine, in 2008; MT2425 at the Oratorio di San Lupo (Bergamo, 2008); La règle du jeu at Teatro India (Rome, 2010) and at Museo Diocesano (Milan, 2011); Giardini pubblici at MART (Rovereto, 2010).
In 2011, the exhibition titled Straziante, meravigliosa bellezza del creato was installed in eleven halls of Villa Manin (Passariano di Codroipo) with a poetic sequence of works created from 2006 to 2011. In 2013, there was Sheherazade at the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa.
In 2014 he presented Paradisi artificiali at Raphael12 (Frankfurt) and created a large banner for the MAXXI Museum in Rome, for the show Mollate le vele. The opening of the new Botanical Garden at the University of Padua provided the occasion for a new solo show, Alles ist Blatt. 2014 also marked the year of his first show in a sacred location, the church of Santa Gianna Beretta Molla at Trezzano sul Naviglio; in the same year he presented Lotteria Farnese, a monumental show in the hall Sala della Meridiana at the Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Naples. In 2015 he organized La legge della giungla at M77 gallery in Milan and he returned to Bern with a solo show at Galleria Rigassi. In 2016 he presents a series of works on paper for Settembre at Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome and CAMeC in La Spezia hosts **Usodimare*, a thematic exhibition about water. He took part in the 54th Venice Biennale, part of the Italian Pavilion.
In 2008, Feltrinelli published the book Giovanni Frangi alle prese con la natura, a collection of essays dedicated to his work by Giovanni Agosti.
