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Getulio Alviani is an Italian painter born in Udine, Italy in 1939. He is considered to be one of the most important of the International Optical-Kinetic artists.

Having shown talent in design and geometry based drawing since childhood, Alviani enrolled in the Venice Artistic School but preferred to contemplate classical masterpieces in Venice's museums. Inspired by aerial electric wires and their static yet energetic qualities, his first series was 'The Wires', and he often uses wires in his work, a recurring motif.

Until 1959 Alviani dedicated himself to the study of problems relating to structured plasticity and general visual communication. He also produced polyvalent monochrome structures in relation to the environment, which he studied the possibilities of transforming in constructive and visual terms. After becoming fascinated with polished aluminium surfaces he found in a factory, the creation of his landmark 'Vibrating Texture Surfaces' started in 1960, representing the most extensive and Internationally well known of his projects. He then began sharing ideas with other artists including Enrico Castellani and Julio Le Parc, becoming an active participant in the activities of the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuelle in Paris.

After such critical acclaim, Getulio moved to Milan, Italy in 1962, where he befriended Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni, who were both very interested in his works. He also worked together with Josef Albers, Bruno Munari and other famous artists. In 1964 he was invited to display his works at the Venice Biennale, sharing a room with Enrico Castellani.

In 1964 Alviani started studying chromostructures and standard elements for wall sets and a year later, he took part in "The Responsive Eye" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and designed his first environment (of many to follow), 'Specular Interrelationship', subsequently exhibited at the "Space of the Image" exhibition at Palazzo Trinci, Foligno. Since 1967 he has produced luminous objects with mechanical movement, visualized physical and chemical phenomena, studied the relation between eye and referent objects, invented environments making use of the mobility of water and fire, and produced a manifesto on "Pneumatic Space" (objects and spaces of volume varying according to function). He has also studied the psychic behavior of man in the environment and the didactic function of structural art which led to his interest in an ideal museum, not merely a collection of objects and historical documentation but a structure designed to educate and activate the visual perception.

Interested in teaching, he was the head of the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara and, from 1981 to 1985, directed the Museum of Modern Art Fondacio Soto at Ciudad Bolivar at the request of Jesús Rafael Soto.

Alviani exhibited several more times at the Venice Biennale (1984, 1986 and 1993), the Milan Triennale, the Kunsthaus Graz (Austria), Pallazzo delle Papesse (Siena), Academie de France (Rome), the Buenos Aires Biennale and the Rome Quadriennale. He has also written and edited several books about other painters in the late 1980s including Josef Albers, Michel Suephor and Richard Anuszkiewicz.