postura, posa, differita Italo Zuffi

The exhibition postura, posa, differita (posture, pose, deferred) by Italo Zuffi at ar/ge kunst in Bolzano, is the concluding episode of a series dedicated to the artist, that started in 2015 at the Nomas Foundation in Rome and continued to the MAN in Nuoro. It was a collaboration between institutions aimed at providing continuity to the artist’s research, with three complementary and independent exhibition projects that have allowed for further exploration of significant works and stages in his career.

postura, posa, differita is developed around a nucleus of works that articulate the complexity of Italo Zuffi’s investigations in the area of performance from the beginning of his career, with particular attention to his relationship with sculpture. Even though the works in the exhibition do not amount to an actual live performance, the presence of the body is affirmed in the form of memory, potential and record.

Sta meglio la ragazza caduta nel vuoto (the girl who fell into the void is better) (2001-2016) consists of a series of metal sheets on which the title of the work is cut out, taken from a newspaper article that the artist found many years before. The sheets are accompanied by clippings from newspapers, each of which tells a similar news story in which a female body, having previously fallen, is in the process of healing.
Similarly, in I rigidi (the stiffs) (2006-2016) Italo Zuffi departs from a previous episode, this time of one of his performances (The Reminder, 1997), to initiate a process of collecting archival images depicting bodies in a variety of stiffening positions. It is a selection in which performances of other artists and “daily” scenes taken from newspapers and magazines have been chosen for the object and sculptural nature of the depicted body.
A group of new ceramics (2006-2016) departs instead from a series of public surveys that also appeared in newspapers and magazines, on issues such as immigration, euthanasia, the brain drain, Europe and the economy, in order to confront attempts to represent a community (in this case Italian citizens). The ceramics, however omit the individual percentages of the survey data, taking only the statistical visualization in its totality in order to further abstract that which wants to be considered the form of a “public voice”.

The new productions on display are therefore united both by recourse to dilated temporality as a working tool, and by the methodology for the collection of the sources on which the works are supported conceptually. The works are in fact the result of a gestation of sometimes years from the moment in which they were actually conceived or initially produced in the form of a prototype. A choice of delaying the moment of execution allows for the accumulation of press and research material on which to form a more articulated and informed vision of the original project.

The works on show therefore narrate a personal way of reading, involving a continuous flow of news and information that progresses towards identification and empathy. They are works about time and about the need to take time in order to find a form of writing that is personal and autobiographical.

The artist will present a new performance during the opening between 7 and 9 pm.

Italo Zuffi (born in Imola in 1969, living in Milan) uses sculpture, performance and writing to create “not a total design, but an indefinite series of rooms” (Pier Luigi Tazzi, 2003). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and at the Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London. In 2001, he was awarded the ‘Wheatley Bequest Fellowship in Fine Art’ at the Institute of Art & Design in Birmingham (UK). Recent solo exhibitions include: Potersi dire, MAN Nuoro (2015); Quello che eri, e quello che sei, Nomas Foundation, Rome (2015); Gli ignari, private apartment, Milan (2013); La penultima assenza del corpo, Pietro Rossini Foundation, Briosco (2012); Zuffi, Italo, Pinksummer, Genoa (2010). Recent collective exhibitions: Fuori uso, Ex-Tribunale, Pescara (2016); Riviera, Swiss Institute of Milan (2016); ALT, Caserma De Sonnaz, Turin (2015); Esercizi di Rivoluzione, MAXXI, Rome (2014); Le leggi dell’ospitalità, P420 Gallery, Bologna (2014); Per4m, Artissima, Turin (2014); I baffi del bambino, Lucie Fontaine, Milan (2014); To continue. Notes towards a Sculpture Cycle | Scala, Nomas Foundation, Rome (2014); La Pelle – Symphony of Destruction, MAXXX Project Space, Sierre (2014); Le statue calde, Marino Marini Museum, Florence (2014).

With thanks for support from
THUN and THUN Ceramic Residency

A special thanks to:
The Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, Department of Culture
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Bolzano
City of Bolzano, Department of Culture