Italo Zuffi

ALSO A LITTLE PERFORMATIVE

ACTIONs AND PERFORMANCEs 1996-2012

Editor Michela Arfiero Graphic Design Stefano Mandracchia Editing English Texts Stephen Conway (pp. 5-15) Emily Ligniti (pp. 17-76) Photo Credits Laura Baresi (pp. 44-45); Marco Bernacchia (p. 30); Sandro Carnino (p. 57 top); Christian Frosi (p. 32, 48); Marco Lunardi (p. 49); Madcaps (pp. 26-27); Antonio Maniscalco (pp. 42-43); Jeanne Martel (pp. 38-39); Margherita Morgantin (p. 67); Elena Nemkova (p. 10); Luca Olivotto (pp. 50-51); Daniele Pellizzoni (p. 75); Davide Rivalta (p. 39 bottom); Andrea Rossetti (p. 73); Italo Zuffi (pp. 7, 12, 13, 18-19, 20-21, 24-25, 33, 37, 54-55, 56-57, 60-61, 62-63, 66, 68-69, 74) Courtesy Pinksummer gallery, Genova Zuffi per Bonami, Ricostruzione, Flavio Staccato Courtesy Francesco Pantaleone gallery, Palermo Ho difeso il tuo onore Special Thanks to Irene Guzman, Fabiola Naldi, Daniele Perra 2013 Italo Zuffi Federica Bueti Fortino Editions LLC All rights reserved Printed and bound in Italy by Grafiche Siz, Verona, June 2013 Print Run: 500 Co-produced by Pinksummer gallery, Genova Co-published by Fortino Editions LLC 978-0-9850596-7-5 Fortino Editions 8345 NW 66TH St., Suite 4367 Miami FL 33166, USA www.fortinoeditions.com

5-15 .................. Moving from A to B, from T to C. Body Movements, Social Codes and the Use of Language in the Work of Italo Zuffi by Federica Bueti 17-19 .................. Rotazione 20-22 .................. The Reminder 23-25 .................. I fischiatori di San Gabriele 26-28 .................. Elenco 29-31 .................. Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia 32-34 .................. Rassegna stampa 35-37 .................. A sheet of Paper taken/from Milano to London/ causing an Equivalent Volume of Air/to transfer from London to Milano 38-40 .................. Partita a bocce con frutta 41-43 .................. Partita a bocce con ortaggi 44-46 .................. Toothpick Geometries 47-49 .................. La nostr evuzi qch d (its live reading) 50-52 .................. Lultimo ruggito 53-55 .................. Masse trasportabili 56-58 .................. Ipercampitura 59-61 .................. Ho difeso il tuo onore 62-64 .................. Zuffi per Bonami 65-67 .................. Ricostruzione 68-70 .................. Lettere di motivazione 71-73 .................. Escalation 74-76 .................. Flavio staccato 78-79 .................. Actions and Performances 1996-2012

Kunstverein (Milano) 978-88-908681-1-5

www.kunstverein.it

79 .................. Biography

2-3

MOVING FROM A TO B, FROM T TO C. BODY MOVEMENTs, sOCIAL CODEs AND THE UsE OF LANGUAGE IN THE WORK OF ITALO ZUFFI
FEDERICA BUETI

1. Exercising the body Stand up! Move to the left! Spread your feet about 6 to 8 inches apart, keeping them parallel. Hold your head up! Come closer, not too close! Look up to the audience, dont read, you must be able to improvise and capture the audiences attention! Try to show empathy! Participation. How many times have you experienced a mounting anxiety just before a public appearance? Public performances are demanding moments, not only do you have to deliver interesting content and make sure ideas work, but the audiences attention has to be kept up too. Of course, ideas really matter, but choreographed ideas are crucial for a successful performance. So, it might be worth rehearsing: Stand up! Move to the left! Head up! Come closer, not too close! Gestures, body movements and poses make up the basic grammar of dance, choreography, cinema and fashion. Yet, they are an established choreography of our daily life. Personally, I learnt the importance of gestures when I was studying at university. Its one of those vivid memories, a seminar on proxemics. What is proxemics? Its the study of cultural, behavioural and sociological aspects of spatial distances between individuals. In the 50s and 60s, Edward

4-5

Hall developed his theory of proxemics suggesting that human perceptions of space are shaped by culture. I still remember lines like 'whether one decides to talk or to remain silent, its impossible not to communicate', or 'it all depends on how you wave your hands and make your eyes blink.' No doubt, gestures are the visual reinforcement of words and ideas one wishes to communicate. However, the purpose of the seminar was to teach us the relevance of gestures in communicating with an audience, but since proxemics like any other attempt to objectify human behaviours, claims to create measurable standards and stable behavioural patterns, what we really learnt was how to reiterate and render a specific social code effective. The seminar took place in the Aula Magna (Main Lecture Hall), the place symbolising the Italian educational institution. What a perfect place for a lesson on cultural and social codification. I clearly remember a large stage on which an unlucky assistant was trying to explain what the right distance between a speaker and her audience should be. It was both comical and tragic. How can one trust institutions which organise such terrible classes and even hire bad professionals? Given the fee I was paying at the time, they should have employed the Bejart ballet company to teach us how to move on stage. However, we didnt learn how to dance and personally, not even how to perform on stage for lately Ive realised that Im not able to measure the supposedly 'right' distance. Nevertheless, the sequence needs to be collectively rehearsed time and again. So, Stand up! Move to the left! Head up! Come closer, not too close! Does it sound absurd? Yet, this is how norms and social codes often function. Why spreading your feet 6 to 8 inches apart is more appropriate than keeping them tightly together cannot be rationally explained and perhaps, after all, its not even a good idea questioning it. If one wants to gain any significant knowledge of instructions, rules and social codes, rational thinking would not help. Rules and codes seem indeed to be governed by a certain absurdity. Kafka knew this well. In The Trial the guards invite Joseph K. to follow them into the living room where someone is waiting for him since he is on trial. On trial? But why? What authority is conducting these proceedings? Are you officials? By whom am I accused? Each of those questions couldnt be answered. As the guards said: 'We know hardly anything about your case, I am quite unable to tell you that you are accused of any offence, or rather, I do not know whether you are. You are under arrest and that is correct, but more than that I do not know.' And indeed, one cannot know, nevertheless it has happened. So, for the rest of the book, Joseph K. seeks with all his strength and energies to gain knowledge of the trial, to understand what the reasons for

Like Kafkas investigation into the courts chambers, Italo Zuffis performance practice seems to be directed toward an understanding of the social and cultural mechanisms through which power emerges. Instead of working with his body, Italo Zuffi formulates instructions which will then be executed, indifferently, by groups of amateur or professional performers or actors. Most of those instructions compel the performers body into difficult movements, and function like the norms K. is forced to accept and perform even though he cannot make sense of the reasons for the trial. Yet, the absurd often produces and at the same time reveals the logic behind the irrationality of a particular code. And it is through the performance of absurdity that Italo Zuffi questions the 'institutionalised' space of art, with all its secret codes and unspoken rules. Like Joseph K., the artist seems to be deeply interested in gaining and sharing the knowledge of the workings of art institutions, of cultural and social mechanisms, while at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of an exhaustive understanding. Since power and its structures and modalities of being are internalised, it is impossible to say with certainty where it is situated and how to respond or resist. So, absurdity becomes a possibility of moving in this uncertain and ambivalent system of power-relations freely. Nevertheless, no redemption can be promised by absurdity. Bodies are forced into uncomfortable positions, sometimes they are asked to act, and at other times they become the object of contemplation, commodities among commodities. In 2006, the artist invited a group of elderly people to perform at the Museo dellArredo Contemporaneo (Museum of Contemporary Furniture), near Ravenna, Italy, in a performance entitled Rassegna Stampa (Press Review). Each participant was asked to stand up and hold a small board with

MOVING FROM A TO b, FROM T TO C

his accusation are, the modalities of the proceedings; he inquiries of the judge, the officials, lawyers, guards yet no one can really help. And paradoxically, the more K. tries to clarify, the more the situation becomes obscure, absurd and incomprehensible. Absurdity is driving force of power, the law of all laws. And its absurdity, the field of comedy and satire, that Joseph K. produces and at the same time he is subjected to.

6-7

an image of one of the artists works accompanied by an excerpt from previous reviews of the depicted work. In standing and holding the board, the performers moved from being the actors to becoming things, from subject to object of contemplation, to mobile human display. Or were they themselves the artists work? Were they consumers or producers? Human beings becoming pieces of furniture, becoming products amongst other products. The market logic that has taken over the whole of society is linear and entirely rational, yet it asks us to become part of an irrational system where even life can potentially become an object of consumption. These are only suppositions, however, as the staged action never explicitly resolves into a critique of the art system and its institutions of society at large, it rather provokes a disturbance and makes the way things and human relations are treated and traded in modern society visible. Suspension is another feature of Zuffis practice. In his performances, indeed, any value judgment or position are suspended as the action continuously oscillates between constraint and liberation, between clarity and opacity. Uncertainty seems to guide both the form and the content of his performances. 2. Displacing the code How does an artist create a rupture in the normal flow of things? Instead of rebelling against the schizophrenic character of contemporary forms of social and cultural production, Italo Zuffi performs and re-enacts power structures making visible the intrinsic irrationality of any power-system that sells itself as the outcome of positive knowledge. Like many of Zuffis performances in which the body is constrained into difficult exercises and positions, the performed set of instructions becomes a trap, a passage with no exit. The performers find themselves in the position of the accused; in the small chamber of court in which the air is suffocating and the accused are about to faint. They are there, in the darkness of the asphyxiating space, the no mans land, the headless body of bureaucracy and the court since, out of curiosity, they want to find out whether the 'organisation was as just repugnant from the inside as it was from the outside.' Italo Zuffis performances explore 'from the inside out' the mechanisms of power as they are reflected both in the institutions which represent and sustain them and in society at large. Absurdity is performed by those in power and those who are dispossessed of it, the masters and the slaves: Kafka and the officer in charge of the trial,

the artist and the actors/ performers. However, Zuffi like Kafka, does not seem to be interested in a cynical reproduction of power and representation of reality. The ambivalent position of being inside and outside and the displacement produced by this state of in-betweeness seems to be one of the possible ways of breaking free from the accepted normality of gestures, behaviours and social codes. The comical and the tragic converge into the body of the performer, which manifests the contradictions inherent to realitys principles. Are you inside or outside? Perhaps at the border, where the distinction between inside and outside becomes blurry and the rule of the game of positions can be subverted. In Toothpick Geometries performed in the FormContent booth at Zoo Art Fair, London in 2008, for instance, performers and casual passers by were invited to take part in the action by kneeling while holding a toothpick in their mouths. The exercise consisted of bringing the tips of the toothpicks together to form a series of basic geometric figures. The performance lasted as long as the performers were able to execute the action while adopting the uncomfortable position. The performance was simultaneously filmed and displayed on a screen which showed the vibrating, slowing composing, and quickly decomposing, forms.

Toothpick Geometries is a game played collectively, yet as game it is a reason for competition and an exercise of mediation. The performed balancing act remains in progress, it is unsolved, as unsolved as is the desire of Joseph K. to gain knowledge and the reader to know what kind of destiny is awaiting the protagonist of the story. 'The only proper thing to do is to come to terms with things as they are'said the attorney'Even if it were possible to improve some detailsbut this is an absurd notionthen at best one would achieve something that might affect future cases.' Whether one decides to unconditionally participate in this collective action or to refuse and challenge the significance of it, its outcomes are unpredictable, and the achieved knowledge might affect future cases, but nothing can be said with certainty. The dilemma of deciding or refusing to participate remains there, suspended between different desires and wills of the actors involved. Power is anyway already at play as the artist has

MOVING FROM A TO b, FROM T TO C

8-9

defined the term of the conversation and preselected the available options. Yet, in what seems to be pre-established, there is a possibility of freedom which cannot be calculated, the liberty that one can take in a moment of uncertainty, the opportunity of improvising offered by this moment of senseless catastrophe. The tension between desires, individual and collective responsibility and agency, centres of power, mechanism of legitimation and the possibility of a liberated action cannot be solved, but embodied and performed by the actors. In any case, the fragile balance of such tension between the individual and the collective, between power and the powerlessness can become a reason for competition, territorial thinking and desire for legitimation, but it can also generate a moment of solidarity between the different parties involved, a situation in which judgments are delayed and expectations disarmed. In this sense Kafkaaccording to the reading proposed by Deleuze and Guattariis a figure of becoming as his way of postponing the moment of understanding, of displacing the expectations of the characters in his novels, is not only a description of the anatomy of power, but also the story of deceiving the mechanisms of power, hence the possibility of subverting and transforming it. In another performance, Zuffi further stretched the tension that arises in the moment of collective performance bringing it to the extreme point of rupture: arranged in pairs of the same sex, the performers kneel, each couple holds a cracker between their teeth, while at regular intervals putting their hands behind their back and clapping. 'Hold the cracker between your teeth. At each given signal, clap. If broken, stand up. When you stand upright, speak aloud.' According to the instructions received, from the moment the cracker breaks, the couple has to incite the others by saying aloud "Coraggio!". As in Toothpick Geometries, where the toothpick is held between the lips in an attempt to create a geometric form, in Lultimo ruggito (The Final Roar), 2008, the fragility of the object (a cracker) and the impossible action (holding it between the teeth while clapping hands) creates a dialectical relation between what seems to be a possibility and what emerges as impossible achievement. In this relationship between the reality of the action and the desire for 'what it could be', disenchantment and utopia emerge as two structuring forces of the process of 'becoming' reality. Through minor gestures, body

3. Moving the grammar around. How to do dance with words How many different semblances can humour put on? Lets imagine a scenario in which police officers would wear beautiful flowery rainbow-like silk scarves. Would you take them seriously? Do you think this would compromise their credibility? Yes and no. Depends on the adopted perspective. Credibility and legitimacy are mainly granted to the ones who respect hence enforce hence re-affirm the existing order of things. In this sense, art has often played against the process of social normalisation and cultural homogenization, yet in the current cultural industry, when art has been professionalised and the artist embodies the figure of the entrepreneur, the game of legitimation has to be played in order to survive the otherwise unwelcoming system of competition and performativity. What are the implications of sticking to this model? And what are the consequences for art and artistic practices of living in a hyper-competitive and antagonistic environment? Taking as a starting point his own personal experience in the art market, in recent performances Italo Zuffi addresses those questions and reflects on the impact of antagonism and competition on artistic practices today. In the performance Zuffi per Bonami, 2010, made at the Pinksummer Gallery, Genova, two rows of silk scarves had been hung on metal strings arranged at the opposite sides of the exhibition room. One set of scarves had been printed with the phrase 'Zuffi per Bonami' and the other one with 'Zuffi per Bonami Inglese'. After entering the space, each performer picked one of the scarves and wrapped it around the neck. The gesture could recall the daily routine of a charming elderly lady who would wear the same scarf to go to the same supermarket, if it wasnt contradicted by the subsequent bizarre

MOVING FROM A TO b, FROM T TO C

movements and simple utterances, Italo Zuffis performances challenge social and cultural norms, how power is performed and endlessly re-instated, opening up questions about power structures, normativity and social antagonism as they are re-iterated within a paternalistic society. The desire for understanding the mechanisms that regulate society are made visible and played out through displacement produced by the tragic-comic actions. The point, indeed, is not to decide if antagonism or power structures are just or unjust, good or bad. Italo Zuffis performances de-familiarize us with the normality we are accustomed to accept as given; neither an opposition, nor a critique, but the absurdity of a senseless action which generates a displacement and breaks the spell of the unspoken, yet dominant principle of competition and performativity of the current societal model.

10 - 11

actionthe group divided into two sub-groups started marching backwardswhich reminds me more of the aggressive marching of soldiers. Yet, also the act of marching backwards could open up many interpretations: are they imitating shrimps or is this the soldiers daily routine? In this moment of doubt, another thing happened: the first sub-group shouted loudly "Zuffi per Bonami!", and the second subgroup, after a few seconds, "Zuffi per Bonami Inglese!"the words on their foulards. The phrases were the handwritten notes which marked the covers of two cds containing Zuffis portfolios, which one of the artist former galleries was supposed to send to the art curator Francesco Bonami. The cds never reached their final destination remaining in a box. When the working relationship between the gallery and the artists ended, the gallery sent the box back to the artist, who then discovered that the cds never arrived at their destination. Would the sending have changed anything? Would Bonami have made up his mind otherwise if only the cds had reached him? But, instead of abandoning himself to paranoid thoughts of the lost occasion, Zuffi re-activated the cds and decided to use the otherwise futile material, celebrate it by inviting the performers to play. So, the Zuffi per Bonami performance can be read as an ambiguous critique of the art system or in an ironic key, as a propitiatory dance for further new occasions to come. Furthermore, while in the previous performances Zuffi projects the relation between centres of power and individual into the body, and reflects on the mechanisms of power through dramatic postures and hard movements, in the most recent performances he seems to become more interested in an analysis of the system of semiotic and linguistic production, in particular how language and communication produce the surplus value necessary to the current economic system hence the art market. While portfolios and artists statements are necessary today to validate artistic practices, Italo Zuffi invites us to re-think the way we are used to conceiving and using language. In Zuffi per Bonami, the two cds containing the portfolio lose their surplus value as part of a promotional machine and are thrown back into the world, they become material that the artist can use and re-use as s/ he desires. Irony here becomes a way of participating in a reality that isnt necessarily conceived in terms of strategic movement,

antagonism, calculation or promotion but in which the poetic emerges in the non-calculated, in the displacement and in the moment of being 'in-between' physically and intellectually implicated in the reality that surrounds us. So, while social relations, communicative abilities and promotional skills are essential to the pursuit of an artists career and language as philosopher Paolo Virno suggesteda means of capitalist production, Italo Zuffi works in the direction of an understanding of the communicational and linguistic machine, while sharing with the audience an optimistic view. In Lettere di motivazione (Letters of Motive), 2011, a group of young artists who had participated in a 3-month workshop led by Zuffi himself at Careof DOCVA (a non profit art organisation in Milan), were asked to recite the statements they had submitted for the application procedure. During the workshop, each participant was asked to randomly pick the motivational letter of another fellow artist, to read and then memorise it. Then, during the performance at conclusion of the workshop, the participants-performers walked along a single row, one after the other and at turns left the perimeter demarcated by a thin string, and went to a microphone to recite the motivations of another fellow artist, as if they were his/hers. While one would expect more conventional sentences like 'The proposal is aimed at' or 'I wish to explore' or 'My commitment to art', the texts reveal a different scenario: the statements are diverse and intimate and again, instead of confirming the expectation of the most cynical or suspicious, these statements are not used as legitimating tool, but they are expression of what language and writing can do: meaning, to be used as media for further expansion of artistic practices or simply as way of sharing thoughts and ideas with others in a more poetic way. Statements, after all, have always been used by the avant-garde as provocative instruments for artists to take social, cultural and political standpoints, or to create a rupture with the past. Italo Zuffi is aware of the potential of such medium and in the exercise proposed in Lettere di motivazione, the artist is able to open the secret chambers of the court and letting in some light and fresh air. Doesnt the court chamber appear bigger then? Through movements, actions, utterances, the artist seeks to open up the existing space of rules and social codes with optimistic irony.

MOVING FROM A TO b, FROM T TO C

12 - 13

4. What do you see from the outside? The artist-applicants letter of motive allows Zuffi to address another question: how many roles does an artist have to play today? The creator/inventor, entrepreneur, tax keeper, researcher, and sometimes also politician. And what are the consequences of the professionalization of artistic practices? While creativity becomes the promise of a successful career as it responds to the entrepreneurial logic of the self-made man, artistic practices take on a secondary role, evaluated on the basis of a certain 'proper' artists ability to communicate what her/his work 'is about.' The 'about' becomes the legitimation as it inscribes the artist within a certain 'area of research' or a specific medium. Italo Zuffis performances seem to obsessively ask the question: what about the artist then? How can s/he survive this process of continuous integration-homologation into a system of legitimation? His gesture reflects on capitalisms commoditisation of the individual, the artist and artistic practices, on how power is produced and exercised in our society. He raises those and other questions and experiments with the material conditions of this exercise of power: bodies, social and cultural codes, languages, while opening up a different horizon experience: one in which irony subverts the rules of gravity, a body becomes a mobile plinth, a toothpick produces a collective exercise in balance, the portfolio of the artists work becomes a good excuse for a party and a boring statement a beautiful poem. On the one hand, the artist makes the dynamics of a societal model apparent in which individual desires are subordinated to economic and strategic relations, touching upon what Michel Foucault called 'micro-physics of power', an understanding of the body as the locus of the power relations, the vehicle of ideology subjected to the scrutiny of the controlling apparatuses which through a particular organisation of space, through proxemics theories or social codes, through gestures and movements, seek to own it as if it were commodities. On the other, through the choreography of the absurd, Italo Zuffi sketches out an outside, which is never the out-outside. It is about becoming the outsider within a certain construction of reality. Outside within the reality we live in. Joseph K. will never fully understand the mechanisms of power, he will never have the full knowledge of the trial; nonetheless, when death comes to take him away, he finally seems to realise that perhaps he has always lived as

1 2 3 4

Kafka, Franz. 2008. The Trial, translated with an introduction by John Williams, Wordsworth Edition, Hertfordshire. First published 1926 Kafka, Franz. 2008. The Trial, translated with an introduction by John Williams, Wordsworth Edition, Hertfordshire. First published 1926 Deleuze G., and Guattari F., Kafka: Towards a Minor literature, University of Minnesota Press; first edition (October 31, 1986) Paolo Virno has developed his theory on linguistic exodus in La grammatica della Moltitudine, DeriveApprodi, Rome, 2002. First US edition, 2004. A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, Semiotext(e)

MOVING FROM A TO b, FROM T TO C

an exile within the chamber of power. In a similar way, by creating impossible scenarios, Italo Zuffis performances displace common sense and the accepted normality of a particular ordering power, making his audience feel estranged within their own normality. Again, the displacement is neither an act of denial nor a confirmation of the existing, it is a way of moving the grammar of reality around, asking new questions, re-phrasing the existing ones and experimenting with new choreographies of thoughts. Yet, in order for the game to continue and for this shift to happen, the displacement must be performed collectively.

14 - 15

Rotazione (Rotation). An action carried out in the absence of bodies: that, not exhibited, of the performer, and that of the public, missing. Among the vast empty spaces (few visitors, custodians... no one), among the paintings and sculptures by Italian artists of the twentieth century, the attention is caught by the chairs placed in each room. I act on the backrests (reclining them one by one, some squeak) to create a temporary alteration, the image of a contracted state.

Rotazione. Unazione condotta in mancanza di corpi: quello, non esibito, del performer, e quello del pubblico, assente. Tra i vasti ambienti deserti (scarsi i visitatori, guardiani, nessuno), fra i dipinti e le sculture di autori italiani del Novecento, lattenzione va alle poltroncine sistemate in ogni sala. Intervengo sugli schienali (a uno a uno inclinandoli, alcuni stridono) per creare unalterazione temporanea, limmagine di uno stato di contrazione.

16 - 17

where Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, Roma

performer Italo Zuffi

1996

18 - 19

ROTAZIONE

where Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London

context

performer Italo Zuffi

alive art - an evening of performance, organised by Marion Mitchell and Ann Rapstoff

1997

20 - 21

THE REMINDER

The Reminder. While residing in London, I conceive a choreography in which to treat the body like an object, to make it a 'thing'. The action takes place in two separate rooms: in one I settle myself (the performer), and there I arrange myself in a series of postures; in the other room is the public who receives, projected on the wall, the images of my short constraintson average, less than one minute each. Every time, the footage shows me only when already completely stiff in a new posture, thereby creating the effect of a frozen picture (the tremor of the body under stress is barely visible). In between projected images, the audience left in the dark hears the sounds of my hurried movements nearby.

I fischiatori di San Gabriele (The San Gabriele Whistlers). During the opening, they arrive and mingle with the public at both ends of the gallery. With a signal, they begin to emit a sequence of whistles, increasingly frequent and high-pitched. Whistles like the ones you hear in the street to attract attention, to locate oneself in a crowd, to improvise a competition, to flirt. The public, surprised, gets closer to the walls, bends towards the works on display.

The Reminder. Risiedo a Londra e concepisco una coreografia attraverso cui trattare il corpo al pari di un oggetto, renderlo una 'cosa'. Svolgo lazione in due ambienti separati: in uno mi sistemo io (il performer), e l mi aggiusto in una serie di posture; nellaltro sta invece il pubblico il quale riceve, proiettate su parete, le immagini delle mie brevi costrizioni (in media, meno di 1 minuto ciascuna). Ogni volta, il filmato mi mostra solo quando gi completamente irrigidito in una nuova posizione, producendo leffetto di unimmagine bloccata (risulta appena visibile il tremore del corpo sotto sforzo). Fra una trasmissione di immagini e laltra, il pubblico lasciato al buio raggiunto dal suono dei miei movimenti affannati prodotti a poca distanza.

I fischiatori di San Gabriele. Nel corso dellinaugurazione, arrivano. Si confondono tra il pubblico alle due estremit della galleria. A un segnale convenuto prendono a emettere una sequenza di fischi, sempre pi frequenti e acuti. Fischi come quelli che si fanno in strada per richiamare lattenzione, per localizzarsi tra la folla, per improvvisare una gara, un amoreggiare. Il pubblico, sorpreso, si stringe lungo le pareti, si addossa alle opere esposte.

22 - 23

where Galleria Neon, Bologna (Italy)

context Opening of Italo Zuffi solo exhibition Lultimo ostacolo mentale

performers A group of men from San Gabriele (a village in the Bologna province)

1998

24 - 25

I FIsCHIATORI DI SAN GAbRIELE

where Teatro Studio, Scandicci (Italy)

context

performers Madcaps (Massimo Innocenti, bass guitar; Samuele La Maida, keyboards; Maurizio Manzoni, voice; Gianni Martini, guitar; Aurelio Pasini, guitar; Daniele Pelliconi, drums), Italo Zuffi, and four extras from Teatro Studio

Tune-up, Clip-on, Plug-in, curated by Luca Cerizza in the framework of Giunture 01.02, curated by Maria Luisa Frisa

2001

26 - 27

ELENCO

Elenco (List). A band takes to the stage. At a short distance from the musicians, I position myself, toositting down and facing the audience, but with some people standing around to hide my identity and create, in this way, a sort of 'bodily confessional'. The singer recites a list of names of galleries I work or had worked with, or had simply got in contact with; but also others, objectively distant, where Id have liked to exhibit my work. The mise-enscne of a desire for visibility.

Espresso. Art Now in Italy. A way to extract the list of artists featured in the book Espresso. Art Now in Italy, in the form of a song composed by: a first instrumental part, during which the singer stays silent and almost motionless, and a second part where he instead begins to deliver, with increasing emphasis/clenching, the names of the thirty-one artists and their birthplaces (the northern component turns out to be hegemonic).

Elenco. Una band si posiziona sul palcoscenico. A poca distanza dai musicisti mi sistemo anchio: seduto e girato verso la platea, ma con alcune persone disposte in piedi attorno per celare la mia identit e creare, in questa maniera, una sorta di 'confessionale umano'. Il cantante declama una lista di nomi di gallerie darte con cui sto lavorando, ho lavorato, o avuto dei semplici contatti; ma anche altre, oggettivamente distanti, in cui avrei voluto esporre il mio lavoro. La messa in scena di un desiderio di visibilit.

Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia. Un modo per portare fuori lelenco degli artisti inclusi nel libro Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia, nella forma di un brano musicale composto da: una prima parte strumentale, durante la quale il cantante rimane silente e pressoch immobile; e una seconda parte dove invece si attiva per declamare, con enfasi/contrazione crescente, i nomi dei 31 artisti e i loro luoghi di nascita (la componente nordica risulta egemone).

"Studio Guenzani, Milano; Galleria Neon, Bologna; Galleria Estro, Padova; Galleria Continua, San Gimignano; Galleria Minini, Brescia; Studio Massimo De Carlo, Milano; Galerie Buchmann, Colonia; Galleria Spaziotempo, Firenze; Galerie T19, Vienna; Richard Salmon Gallery, Londra; e/static, Torino; Analix Forever, Ginevra; Lisson Gallery, Londra; Antony Reynolds Gallery, Londra; Asprey Jacques, Londra; Matts Gallery, Londra; S.A.L.E.S., Roma; Matthew Marks, New York; Gi Marconi, Milano; Greengrassi, Londra; Neu, Berlino; Placentia Arte, Piacenza; De Chiara/Stewart, New York; Artra, Milano; Giancarla Zanutti, Milano; Salvatore e Caroline Ala, Milano; Franco Noero, Torino; Raucci e Santamaria, Napoli!"

1 2

Espresso. Art Now in Italy, Mondadori Electa, Milano 2000, was a publication conceived with the aim to promote, both in Italy and abroad, a selected and emerging Italian art scene "Elisabetta Benassi, Roma; Carlo Benvenuto, Novara; Simone Berti, Adria; Bianco-Valente, Latronico e Napoli; Botto & Bruno, Torino; Maggie Cardelus, Virginia; Monica Carrocci, Roma; Loris Cecchini, Milano; Sarah Cirac, Grottaglie; Roberto Cuoghi, Modena; Lara Favaretto, Treviso; Giuseppe Gabellone, Brindisi; Stefania Galegati, Bagnacavallo; Luisa Lambri, Cant; Marcello Maloberti, Casalpusterlengo; Margherita Manzelli, Ravenna; Nicola Pellegrini, Milano; Perino & Vele, New York e Rotondi; Diego Perrone, Asti; Cristiano Pintaldi, Roma; Paola Pivi, Milano; Sara Rossi, Milano; Marco Samor, Faenza; Alessandra Tesi, Bologna; Sabrina Torelli, Reggio Emilia; Patrick Tuttofuoco, Milano; Francesco Vezzoli, Brescia; Italo Zuffi, Imola!"

28 - 29

where TPO at Euraquarium, Bologna (Italy)

context

performers Madcaps (Massimo Innocenti, bass guitar; Gianni Martini, guitar; Aurelio Pasini, guitar; Daniele Pelliconi, drums; Marco Pelliconi, keyboards) feat. Italo Zuffi, voice

Space is the place_3, curated by Marco Altavilla

2004

30- 31

EsPREssO. ARTE OGGI IN ITALIA