Diego Tonus (b.1984, Italy) lives and works in The Hague (NL).

Within his artistic practice, Diego Tonus uses reproduction as a means to question control systems and power structures by transforming selected images, objects, and collective experiences, placing them within new frameworks that expose their underlying codes and forms of normativity.
This approach defines a time- and process-based production articulated through sculpture, film, photography, and performance. Across media, his work is grounded in archiving as an active gesture rather than preservation (e.g., From State To State). What is collected, ordered, or omitted becomes structural, allowing reproduction to disclose how meaning is formed, transmitted, and withheld through the politics of materials chosen, their sourcing, and use.
Through acts of copying, re-enactment, and reconstruction, Tonus produces sculptures (e.g., Processing Authorities) and images conceived as new originals: works that retain physical and conceptual traces of their sources while shifting the conditions that shaped them. In sculpture, information is embedded rather than disclosed. Contracts, archives, and instruments of authority are remade as physical objects that hold secrets, decisions and delegated power (e.g., the series Professional Secrets or Fragments of a Conversation with a Counterfeiter).
Film extends this position through time. By reconstructing unrealised architectures and mediated events (e.g., Topography of Terror), the artist treats images as spatial constructs shaped by repetition and narration, where information accumulates and transforms into belief.
In recent years, he has addressed his works as platforms – virtual or physical – within which narratives addressing identity, power, and authority are staged, positioning his explorations between fiction and documentary. Ultimately, Tonus’s work engages the balance between narrative forms and content, where structure operates as an instrument of influence on both public perception and the object, and where the artwork shapes thought through affect drawn from political and social processes.

Diego Tonus studied Visual Arts at IUAV University, Venice and received an MFA from Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. Solo shows and presentations including those at Goethe-Institut Kyoto (2025); Ca’ Pesaro Venice (2024); the CSAC Museum and Archive Parma (2023); Whitechapel Gallery London and Rozenstraat Amsterdam (2020, duo with artist Elisa Caldana); STROOM Den Haag (2019); Van Eyck Maastricht (2019); Ellen de Bruijne Projects (2018); ar/ge kunst Kunstverein Bozen (2017); De Appel Arts Centre (2015); Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2013) and Danish Pavilion, Giardini Biennale Venice (2011). He participated in numerous group exhibitions including at MAXXI Rome (2023); TENT Rotterdam (2020); Kasteel Oud-Rekem (2019); MAMbo Bologna (2018); Moscow Biennale (2018); Saal Biennal, Tallin (2017); 16th Rome Quadrennial (2016); WIELS, Brussels (2015); De Appel (2015); Van Gogh Museum (2015); CCA Singapore (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); Fondazione Sandretto Turin (2013) and Kunstverein Nürnberg (2013). His films were presented internationally including at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015) and Kunsthalle Gwangju (2011). Tonus has been awarded residencies at Arts at CERN, Geneva (2026); Goethe-Institut, Kyoto (2025); Van Eyck, Maastricht (2017); at WIELS, Brussels (2014) and Spinola Banna Foundation, Turin (2011) among others. Tonus has been nominated for awards including the PAC – DGCC (2022); Italian Council – MiBAC (2018); Centrale Fies (2015) and Premio Furla, Bologna (2012). Among his publications: Five Cases of Intrusion (Archive Books Berlin, 2015); I, the Dog of my Master (MER.Books Ghent, 2015); The Presidents’ Hammers (Roma Publications Amsterdam, 2018); Fragments of a Conversation with a Counterfeiter (Roma Publications, 2019); Never Again (Mousse Publishing, Milano 2020); From State To State (Electa, 2023).

SELECTED COLLECTIONS:

Public Collections: CSAC Museum and Archive Parma; MAMbo Museum Permanent Collection (Bologna); MAXXI Museum Permanent Collection (Rome); MoMA – Moscow Museum of Modern Art Permanent Collection (Russia); Centrale Fies Collection (Trento); Spinola Banna Foundation Collection (Turin); AGI Verona Collection (Verona).

Selected Private Collections: Croux Collection (Hasselt, Belgium); Rotschild Collection (Belgium); McCarthy and Sager Collection (New York);  Cordis Collection (Verona, Italy); Schwarz Collection (Munich); Cochrane Collection (Turin, Italy); Lauf Collection (Rome, Italy); Dittrich Collection (Maastricht).

Supported by Mondriaan Fonds Amsterdam
Kunstenaar Basis 2024-2028