Vittorio Urbani (born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1954) is an independent curator, based in Venice, Italy, who has been organizing contemporary exhibitions and curating art books and catalogues since 1993 as director of the non-profit organization “Nuova Icona – associazione culturale per le arti” based in Venice, Italy, and at international venues. He has been invited as visiting curator to Vancouver (1999), Istanbul (in 2000 and several other times) and Baku, Cardiff and Rotterdam in 2004, Helsinki, Tbilisi and Yerevan in 2007, and Zagreb in 2009. He has been the Selector for the art prize “Perspectives” at Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, 2004. He has been also invited as co-selector for the “Kyoto Prize” on 2006 and 2009. He has been invited to select the Italian participation (Elisabetta Benassi, Fabio Mauri, Antonio Riello, Paolo Ravalico Scerri) in the Second Quadrilateral Biennial, Rijeka, Croatia, 2007, the Italian participation (Flavio Favelli) in the Biennial of Caucasus “Art Caucasus”, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2007 and again the Italian participation in Sinopale, 1st and 3rd Biennial of Sinop (Turkey) with Antonio Riello and Marc Rees in 2006 and Daniele Pezzi in 2010 He has been member of IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art).
Nuova Icona is dedicated to the realization of projects by contemporary visual artists. Under Urbani’s artistic direction, Nuova Icona has held about 200 shows in Italy and abroad, organized symposia and seminars and published more than 100 catalogues.
Since 1995 Nuova Icona has organized for 5 editions the national official participations of Ireland in the Venice Art Biennale. It has also collaborated as manager to the national official participations of Wales (2001, 2003, 2007, 2009), Turkey (2001, 2003 and 2005), Scotland (2003), USA (2003), India (collateral exhibition in 2005), Finland (2005), Bulgaria (2008), Azerbaijan (2007, 2009, 2011), Lebanon (2007), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, 2009), Palestine (2009), Iraq (2011 and 2013).
The association has a special interest in artistic projects concerning cultural exchanges with Turkey and the Middle East.