This article was originally published in Domus 771 / May 1995
Solomon's Seal between Blue Klein and Pink Fontana
The Maurizio Nannucci exhibition at the Wiener Secession
in Vienna, from April 5th to May 15th 1995,
presents an anthology of his neon installations. The
panorama begins with the first installations of the
1960s and concludes with works specially created
for the Secession space.
This important event comes after a whole string of
recent major retrospectives: Lenbachhaus, Munich
1981; Villa delle Rose, Bologna 1992; Villa Arson,
Nice 1992; Usine Fromage, Rouen 1993; Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris 1994; Kunstmuseum, Aarhus
1994.
The Viennese show is a celebration of Nannucci's
idiom, the consecration of his style, the integration
of semantic signs in architecture, of his strategy of
space-light relations in the combined used of colours.
This exhibition will clarify once and far all the
scale of the man as a «writer of space» and protagonist
of the poetic integration of neon light in architecture.
Maurizio Nannucci has by now gained his place
among the family of great semiologists of our day,
between sign and light: Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman on one side and James Turrell
and Dan Flavin on the other. Thus the "solitary" period
of his career, during which the Florentine artist
had occupied a position of relative self-exclusion
from the Italian scene of his generation, is
clearly over.
Between Blue Klein and Pink Fontana
Maurizio Nannucci's 1995 exhibition at the Vienna Secession prompts Pierre Restany to consider the Florentine artist's "light paintings", which emit the unusual message of a highly personalized poetry.
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- Pierre Restany
- 01 September 2012
- Vienna
Born in 1939, Nannucci fitted naturally into the experimental landscape of visual and sound poetry of the years '65- '75, as extensively witnessed by the diversity of his expressive media: visual and audiovisual works, performances, artist's books, photographic series. Developed aver a span of thirty years, his oeuvre today demonstrates all the practical and theoretic consistency of his principal motivation: that of writing as a synthetic and all-embracing practice.
The choice of neon in his graphic and calligraphic
compositions of the late Sixties is deeply significant
of this quest for linguistic order, which quickly became
the guiding thread of his labyrinth. Phonetic
alphabet (1967-68) or Red Line (1969) illustrate the
lyrical impulse of a gestural calligraphy, while The
missing poem is the poem (1969) marks the appearance
of a constructivist spirit of geometry in his poetic-
visual investigations.
This was to be the masterpath of his adventure, the
structural device that distinguished him from the
parallel developments of the European Fluxus visual
poets and performers. The "strategic" use of
signs and colours was the projected work of the
memory-universe, a memory where all is space,
where time matters little (it is in fact called after the
instant of illumination). The signs of memory liberated
from the iron law of lime are projected into
space, their true realm, their specific field of extension.
Space is by definition flexible and available:
the blank page of a book, the four walls or
ceiling of a room. The architrave or architectural
façade. And so the other working system of Nannucci's
strategy, colour. Brought to bear, with
its complex relations and correspondences: light,
space, language.
The "strategic" use of signs and colours was the projected work of the memory-universe, a memory where all is space, where time matters little. The signs of memory liberated from the iron law of lime are projected into space, their true realm, their specific field of extension
Through a combination of different elements of these devices, the artist has succeeded in exploding the paralysing syntax of language, so as to get through the aesthetic order of his "light-paintings". The link between writing and architecture is firmly established in his luminescent emblems. His signs condition both light and the installation space; the epigraph has won its full visual autonomy. The labyrinthine symbol of Solomon's Seal (1992), exhibited at Aarhus, stresses the semantic path followed by the linear system and by the alchemy of his primary colours.
In his large and now classic compositions of 1991,
such as Art Light Text (1000 X 300x 5 cm) or Time
Life Line (7000 x 300 x 5 cm), the capital letters of
the alphabet are fragmented and projected in a geometric
sequence that is a source of luminescent clarities.
Nannucci has always been a great traveller, and during the '90s, during which he established his name
worldwide, his monumental light paintings multiplied
all over Europe. Let's talk about art ... maybe
(1992), on the Mail Road of Edinburgh (1992) or
More than meets the eye (Kunsthalle Vienna 1993)
project into their surrounding space the rhythmic organic
obliquity of the artist's mental researches and
hesitations.
Thanks to the magic of his signs, Maurizio Nannucci
has got past the stumbling-block of decorative action
on built space. Due to their visual semantic polivalence,
his neon paintings are not content to
transmit objective information, as do the illuminated
signs on urban buildings. Instead, they emit
the unusual message of a highly personalized poetry,
an uncannily coloured message beyond words.
A monumental composition of 1988, a vertical sign
fourteen metres long, projected onto one side of the
St. Pierre Museum at Lyons two names, associated
with two colours: Blue Klein, Pink Fontana. This
cultural reference speaks volumes: it is the key to the
whole gamut of Maurizio Nannucci's expression:
between pink gashes and blue monochrome, Solomon's
seal... Pierre Restany