Arts at CERN

In his artistic practice, Diego Tonus uses reproduction to interrogate systems of control and power structures. By transforming selected images, objects, and collective experiences and placing them within new frameworks, he exposes their underlying codes and forms of normativity.

Working across different media, his time- and process-based practice is grounded in archiving as an active gesture rather than one rooted in preservation. What is collected, ordered, or omitted becomes structural, allowing reproduction to disclose how meaning is formed through the politics of materials chosen, their sourcing, and use.

Through copying, re-enactment, and reconstruction, he produces sculptures, films, and images conceived as new originals that retain traces of their sources while shifting the conditions that formed them, treating images as spatial constructs shaped by repetition and narration.

Diego Tonus is based in The Hague. Solo shows include those at the Goethe-Institut Kyoto, Ca’ Pesaro Venice, CSAC Parma, Van Eyck Maastricht, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, ar/ge kunst Bozen, and Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam. Selected group shows include MAXXI Rome; TENT Rotterdam; WIELS Brussels; CCA Singapore and Palais de Tokyo Paris. His films have been screened internationally, including at Whitechapel Gallery London; Hammer Museum and Kunsthalle Gwangju. Selected public collections: MAMbo Bologna; MAXXI Rome; CSAC Parma; MMoMA Moscow.

Diego Tonus visited CERN as a Guest Artist in April 2026, with his research trip supported by Mondriaan Fonds.