Michele Zaza was born in Molfetta in Puglia on November 7, 1948.
His research begins with the Christology cycle, presented in 1972 at the Diagramma / Inga-Pin gallery in Milan. In 1980, at Leo Castelli in New York, Zaza exhibited Neo-Terrestre. In the same year Zaza is invited to the Venice Biennale with a personal room. Subsequently, in 1981 he is in Paris with an anthological exhibition at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris. While in Geneva, at the Cabinet des estampes du Musée d'art et d'histoire in 1991, and in Moscow in 1996 at the Shchusev Architecture Museum with a series of new works inspired by Hölderlin.
In the 1980s Zaza began to insert sculptural elements in his works, such as Landscape in which three-dimensional forms appear next to the photographs.
His works are kept in various public collections, including the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation in Basel, the Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis); the Kunsthaus (Zurich).