PH MICHELE ALBERTO SERENI

Maurizio Nannucci

Bio

MAURIZIO NANNUCCI

 

Maurizio Nannucci was born in Florence on April 20, 1939, where he lives and works.

 

After studying at the Florence Academy of Fine Art and in Berlin, Maurizio Nannucci worked for many years as a set designer with experimental theatre groups. During the first half of the 1960s he consolidated the fundamental elements of his visual language by exploring the relationship between art, language and image, and by creating his first Dattilogrammi, in which words reclaim their power as symbols. During this period he engaged in experimental work with the Fluxus artists, developed an interest in visual poetry, and collaborated with the studio S 2F M (Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Firenze) in producing electronic music which concentrated on using the voice and words to create sound installations.

 

For his first solo exhibition, held in 1967 at the Centro Arte Viva in Trieste, he presented his earliest neon light texts in order to highlight the temporality of writing rather than the materiality of objects. In 1968 he founded the Florence publishing houses Exempla and Zona Archives Edizioni, which publish editions by artists such as Sol LeWitt, John Armleder, James Lee Byars, Robert Filliou and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

 

Nannucci considers the editions and multiples as manifestations of an artistic practice that views art as a mental process, applicable to the mass production of everyday objects and able to reach areas beyond the realm of art. In this way the art object loses its uniqueness but gains presence and new freedom.

 

Nannucci has always been interested in the relationship between the artwork, architecture and the urban landscape, and in the 1990s he collaborated with architects such as Auer & Weber, Mario Botta, Massimiliano Fuksas and Renzo Piano. His work is found in museum collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the MAXXI, Rome.

 

Nannucci presented work at the Venice Biennale (1990; 1978), Documenta, Kassel (1977), the Biennale of Sydney (1990, 1982), the Istanbul Biennial (1995), Performa 07, New York (2007) and the Valencia Biennale (2003). In 2015 an important retrospective of his work was held at the MAXXI Museum in Rome.

 

The latest acquisitions of his work include You can imagine the opposite, Politecnico di Milano (2023), exposed to Salone del Mobile 2023; The missing poem is the poem by Maurizio Nannucci, has become part of MAXXI L’Aquila Museum permanent collection (2021); New Times for Other Ideas / New Ideas for Other Times has been installed at City Life Park in Milan (2020). New horizons for other visions / new visions for other horizons has been included in Palazzo Maffei in Verona (2020); Time Past And Time Present Are Both Perhaps Present In Time Future has been installed at the Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta, Parma (2019).

 

Nannucci’s permanent installations include those at the Auditorium del Parco della Musica, Rome; Fiumicino Airport, Rome; MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; and Altes Museum und Bibliothek des Deutschen Bundestages, Berlin.

 

Maurizio Nannucci with Zona Archives was a guest artist within the programme of Movement festival organised by the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2023) where he exhibited Red Line neon installation, 1969.

Solo exhibitions include MAURIZIO NANNUCCI. ROTEATION, Galleria Enrico Astuni (2025) and the important anthological exhibition at MAXXI Museum, Rome (2015).

 

The artist has participated in several group exhibitions at Galleria Enrico Astuni including “1964 – 2024”. Alberto Garutti, Christian Jankowski, Maurizio Mochetti, Maurizio Nannucci, Gianni Piacentino; L’opera d’arte parla (2023); La realtà i linguaggi (2021); FOUR IDEAS (2021); Raccontare un luogo – (Tales of a Place) (2015); 66|16, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, etc…(2016).

 

Exhibitions

Publications

Gallery