Maurizio Nannucci


Maurizio Nannucci is an Italian contemporary artist. Lives and works in Florence and South Baden, Germany. Nannucci's work includes: photography, video, neon installations, sound installation, artist's books, and editions. Since the mid-sixties he is a protagonist of international artistic experimentation in Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art.

Biography

Maurizio Nannucci was born in Florence on April 20, 1939. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and Berlin, he attended electronic music courses and worked for several years with experimental theater groups, drawing sceneries. In 1968 he founded the Exempla publishing house and the Zona Archives Edizioni in Florence, still playing an intense editorial activity by publishing artist's books and records, multiple copies and other artists' records.
From 1974 to 1985 he was part of the non-profit space Zona in Florence, organizing over two hundred exhibitions and events. In 1981 he created Zona Radio, a radio station dedicated to artists' sound work and experimental music, and in 1998 founded together with Paolo Parisi, Massimo Nannucci, Carlo Guaita, Paolo Masi and Antonio Catelani, Base / Progetti per l'arte, a nonprofit space of artists for other artists. Since the mid-1960s, he explored the relationship between art, language and image, between light-colour and space, creating unprecedented conceptual ideas, characterized by the use of different media: neon, photography, video, sound, editions and artist's books.
From 1967 are the first neon works that bring to his work a more diverse dimension of meaning and a new perception of space. Since then, Nannucci's research has always been focused in an interdisciplinary dialogue between work, architecture and urban landscape, as demonstrated by collaborations with Renzo Piano, Massimiliano Fuksas, Mario Botta, Nicolas Grimshaw and Stephan Braunfels. He has participated several times at the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel and the Biennales of Sao Paulo, Sydney, Istanbul, Valencia, and has exhibited in the most important museums and galleries all over the world.
Among his neon installations in public places and institutions it is worth mentioning: Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge; Auditorium Parco della Musica, Roma; Bibliothek des Deutschen Bundestages e Altes Museum, Berlino; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Lenbachhaus München; Villa Arson, Nizza; Fondazione Peggy Guggenheim, Venezia; Mamco, Ginevra; Galleria d’arte moderna, Torino; Hubbrücke, Magdeburgo; Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Maxxi, Roma. Several the recent installations of Nannucci in public spaces in Milano: from the large “And what about the truth” at the Triennale to “No more excuses”, realizes for the Expo 2015 on the façade of the Refettorio Ambrosiano in Piazzale Greco. Recent exhibitions include: “Anni Settanta”, at the Triennale in Milano ; “Fuori! Arte e Spazio Urbano 1968/1976”, at the Museo del Novecento ; “Ennesima”, at the Triennale ; “L’Inarchiviabile” at the FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea.

Editorial activities

He founded the publishing houses Exempla, Recorthings, and Zona Archives Edizioni, editing and publishing books, records and multiples on such contemporary artists as Sol LeWitt, John Armleder, James Lee Byars, Robert Filliou, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Carsten Nicolai, Olivier Mosset, Rirkrit Tiravanija. From 1976 to 1981 he published Mèla Art Magazine.

Exhibitions