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Italo Zuf

ALSO A LITTLEPERFORMATIVE



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Editor

Michela Arero

Graphic DesignStefano 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 Zu (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, GenovaZu 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 Zu

Federica Bueti

Fortino Editions LLC

All rights reserved

Printed and bound in Italy by

Grache Siz, Verona, June 2013

Print Run: 500

Co-produced by

Pinksummer gallery, Genova

Co-published by

Fortino Editions LLC Kunstverein (Milano)

978-0-9850596-7-5 978-88-908681-1-5

Fortino Editions

8345 NW 66TH St., Suite 4367

Miami FL 33166, USA

www.fortinoeditions.com www.kunstverein.it

Moving from A to B, from T to C. Body Movements,

Social Codes and the Use of Language in the Work

of Italo Zu by Federica Bueti

Rotazione

The Reminder

I schiatori di San Gabriele

Elenco

Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia

Rassegna stampa

A sheet of Paper taken/from Milano to London/

causing an Equivalent Volume of Air/to transfer

from London to Milano

Partita a bocce con frutta

Partita a bocce con ortaggi

Toothpick Geometries

La nostr evuzi è qch d (its live reading)

L’ultimo ruggito

Masse trasportabili

Ipercampitura

Ho difeso il tuo onore

Zu per Bonami

Ricostruzione

Lettere di motivazione

Escalation

Flavio staccato

Actions and Performances 1996-2012

Biography

5-15

17-19

20-22

23-25

26-28

29-31

32-34

35-37

38-40

41-43

44-46

47-49

50-52

53-55

56-58

59-61

62-64

65-67

68-70

71-73

74-76

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79

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MOVING FROM A TO B,FROM T TO C. BODYMOVEMENTS, SOCIALCODES AND THE USE OFLANGUAGE IN THE WORKOF 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, don’t read, you must be able to

improvise and capture the audience’s 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 audience’s 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. It’s one

of those vivid memories, a seminar on proxemics. What is proxemics?

It’s the study of cultural, behavioural and sociological aspects of

spatial distances between individuals. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Edward

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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, it’s 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 measurablestandards and stable behavioural patterns, what we really learnt

was how to reiterate and render a specic social code eective. 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 codication. 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 didn’t learn how to dance and personally, not even how to perform

on stage for lately I’ve realised that I’m not able to measure thesupposedly '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, it’s not even a good idea questioning

it. If one wants to gain any signicant 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 theliving room where someone is waiting for him since he is on trial.

On trial? But why? What authority is conducting these proceedings?

Are you ocials? By whom am I accused? Each of those questions

couldn’t 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 oence, 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

his accusation are, the modalities of the proceedings; he inquiries

of the judge, the ocials, 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 it’s absurdity, the eld of

comedy and satire, that Joseph K. produces and at the same time he is

subjected to.

Like Kafka’s investigation into the court’s chambers, Italo Zu’sperformance 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 Zu formulates instructions

which will then be executed, indierently, by groups of amateur or

professional performers or actors. Most of those instructions compel

the performer’s body into dicult 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 Zu 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 theworkings 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, commoditiesamong commodities. In 2006, the

artist invited a group of elderly

people to perform at the Museo

dell’Arredo 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

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M O V I N G F R O M A

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an image of one of the artist’s 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 artist’s 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 lifecan 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 Zu’s 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 ow of things?

Instead of rebelling against the schizophrenic character of

contemporary forms of social and cultural production, Italo Zu

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 Zu’s performances in which

the body is constrained into dicult exercises and positions, the

performed set of instructions becomes a trap, a passage with no exit.

The performers nd themselves in the position of the accused; in the

small chamber of court in which the air is suocating and the accused

are about to faint. They are there, in the darkness of the asphyxiatingspace, the no man’s land, the headless body of bureaucracy and

the court since, out of curiosity, they want to nd out whether the

'organisation was as just repugnant from the inside as it was from the

outside.'

Italo Zu’s performances explore 'from the inside out' the

mechanisms of power as they are reected 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 ocer in charge of the trial,

the artist and the actors/

performers. However, Zu

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 thisstate 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 reality’s

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 thetips of the toothpicks together to form a series of basic geometric

gures. The performance lasted as long as the performers were able

to execute the action while adopting the uncomfortable position.

The performance was simultaneously lmed 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. 'Theonly 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

details—but this is an absurd notion—then at best one would achieve

something that might aect future cases.' Whether one decides to

unconditionally participate in this collective action or to refuse and

challenge the signicance of it, its outcomes are unpredictable, and

the achieved knowledge might aect future cases, but nothing can be

said with certainty. The dilemma of deciding or refusing to participate

remains there, suspended between dierent desires and wills of

the actors involved. Power is anyway already at play as the artist has

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dened 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 oered 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 andthe 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 dierent

parties involved, a situation in which judgments are delayed and

expectations disarmed. In this sense Kafka—according to the reading

proposed by Deleuze and Guattari—is a gure 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, Zu further stretched the tension that arises

in the moment of collective performance bringing it to the extremepoint 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 L’ultimo 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

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movements and simple utterances, Italo Zu’s 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 Zu’s performances de-familiarize uswith 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.

3. Moving the grammar around. How to do dance with words

How many dierent semblances can humour put on? Let’s imagine

a scenario in which police ocers would wear beautiful owery

rainbow-like silk scarves. Would you take them seriously? Do you think

this would compromise their credibility? Yes and no. Depends on theadopted perspective. Credibility and legitimacy are mainly granted to

the ones who respect hence enforce hence re-arm 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 gure 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 Zu addresses those

questions and reects on the impact of antagonism and competition

on artistic practices today. In the performance Zu 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

'Zu per Bonami' and the other one with 'Zu 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 wasn’t contradicted by the subsequent bizarre



action—the group divided into two sub-groups started marching

backwards—which 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 soldier’s daily

routine? In this moment of doubt, another thing happened: the rst

sub-group shouted loudly "Zu per Bonami!", and the second sub-

group, after a few seconds, "Zu per Bonami Inglese!"—the words

on their foulards. The phrases were the handwritten notes which

marked the covers of two cd’s containing Zu’s portfolios, which oneof the artist former galleries was supposed to send to the art curator

Francesco Bonami. The cd’s never reached their nal 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 cd’s never arrived at their destination. Would

the sending have changed anything? Would Bonami have made up

his mind otherwise if only the cd’s had reached him? But, instead of

abandoning himself to paranoid thoughts of the lost occasion, Zu

re-activated the cd’s and decided to use the otherwise futile material,

celebrate it by inviting the performers to play. So, the Zu 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 Zu projects the

relation between centres of power and individual into the body, and

reects 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 artist’s statements are

necessary today to validate artistic practices, Italo Zu invites us

to re-think the way we are used to conceiving and using language.

In Zu per Bonami , the two

cd’s 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 isn’t necessarily conceived

in terms of strategic movement,

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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, communicativeabilities and promotional skills

are essential to the pursuit

of an artist’s career and language —as philosopher Paolo Virno

suggested—a means of capitalist production, Italo Zu 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 Zu

himself at Careof DOCVA (a non prot 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 conclusionof 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 dierent scenario: the statements are diverse and

intimate and again, instead of conrming 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 Zu 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.

Doesn’t 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.



4. What do you see from the outside?

The artist-applicant’s letter of motive allows Zu 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 thepromise 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' artist’s 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 specic medium.

Italo Zu’s 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

reects on capitalism’s 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 experimentswith the material conditions of this exercise of power: bodies, social

and cultural codes, languages, while opening up a dierent 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 artist’s 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 Zu 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 nally seems to realise that perhaps he has always lived as


T O B , F R

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an exile within the chamber of power. In a similar way, by creating

impossible scenarios, Italo Zu’s 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 conrmation 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 beperformed collectively.

1 Kafka, Franz. 2008. The Trial , translated with an introduction by John Williams, Wordsworth Edition,

Hertfordshire. First published 1926

2 Kafka, Franz. 2008. The Trial , translated with an introduction by John Williams, Wordsworth Edition,

Hertfordshire. First published 1926

3 Deleuze G., and Guattari F.,Kafka: Towards a Minor literature , University of Minnesota Press; rst edition

(October 31, 1986)

4 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)



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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. Un’azione 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, l’attenzione va alle poltroncine sistemate in ogni sala.

Intervengo sugli schienali (a uno a uno inclinandoli, alcuni stridono) per creare

un’alterazione temporanea, l’immagine di uno stato di contrazione.



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where

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte

Moderna, Roma

ROTAZIONE

performer

Italo Zu

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1

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context

alive art - an evening of

performance , organised by

Marion Mitchell and Ann

Rapsto

where

Central Saint Martins College

of Art & Design, London

THE REMINDER

performer

Italo Zu

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The Reminder. While residing in London, I conceive a choreography in whichto 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 constraints—on

average, less than one minute each. Every time, the footage shows me only

when already completely sti in a new posture, thereby creating the eect

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.

The Reminder. Risiedo a Londra e concepisco una coreograa attraverso cui

trattare il corpo al pari di un oggetto, renderlo una 'cosa'. Svolgo l’azione in

due ambienti separati: in uno mi sistemo io (il performer), e lì mi aggiusto in

una serie di posture; nell’altro 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 lmato mi mostra solo quando già completamente

irrigidito in una nuova posizione, producendo l’eetto di un’immagine

bloccata (risulta appena visibile il tremore del corpo sotto sforzo). Fra una

trasmissione di immagini e l’altra, il pubblico lasciato al buio è raggiunto dal

suono dei miei movimenti aannati prodotti a poca distanza.

2 2 -

2 3

I fschiatori di San Gabriele (The San Gabriele Whistlers). During theopening, 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

irt. The public, surprised, gets closer to the walls, bends towards the works

on display.

I fschiatori di San Gabriele . Nel corso dell’inaugurazione, arrivano. Si

confondono tra il pubblico alle due estremità della galleria. A un segnale

convenuto prendono a emettere una sequenza di schi, sempre più frequenti

e acuti. Fischi come quelli che si fanno in strada per richiamare l’attenzione,

per localizzarsi tra la folla, per improvvisare una gara, un amoreggiare. Il

pubblico, sorpreso, si stringe lungo le pareti, si addossa alle opere esposte.



1

9 9 8

context

Opening of Italo Zu solo

exhibition L’ultimo ostacolo

mentale

where

Galleria Neon, Bologna (Italy)

I FISCHIATORI DI SAN GABRIELE

performers

A group of men from San Gabriele (a village in the

Bologna province)

2 4 -

2 5



2

0 0 1

context

Tune-up, Clip-on, Plug-in,

curated by Luca Cerizza in the

framework of Giunture 01.02,

curated by Maria Luisa Frisa

where

Teatro Studio, Scandicci (Italy)

ELENCO

performers

Madcaps (Massimo Innocenti, bass guitar; Samuele

La Maida, keyboards; Maurizio Manzoni, voice;

Gianni Martini, guitar; Aurelio Pasini, guitar; Daniele

Pelliconi, drums), Italo Zu, and four extras from

Teatro Studio

2 6 -

2 7



Elenco (List). A band takes to the stage. At a short distance from themusicians, I position myself, too�sitting 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 I’d have liked to exhibit my work.¹ The mise-en-

scène of a desire for visibility.

Elenco . Una band si posiziona sul palcoscenico. A poca distanza dai musicisti

mi sistemo anch’io: seduto e girato verso la platea, ma con alcune persone

disposte in piedi attorno per celare la mia identità e creare, in questa

maniera, una sorta di 'confessionale umano'. Il cantante declama una lista di

nomi di gallerie d’arte¹ 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 visibilità.

1 "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; Matt’s Gallery, Londra; S.A.L.E.S., Roma; Matthew Marks, New York; Giò 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!"

2 8 -

2 9

Espresso. Art Now in Italy . A way to extract the list of artists featured inthe book Espresso. Art Now in Italy ,¹ in the form of a song composed by:

a rst 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

birthplaces² (the northern component turns out to be hegemonic).

Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia . Un modo per portare fuori l’elenco degli artisti

inclusi nel libro Espresso. Arte oggi in Italia¹, nella forma di un brano musicale

composto da: una prima parte strumentale, durante la quale il cantante

rimane silente e pressoché 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 nascita² (la componente nordica risulta egemone).

1 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

2 "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 Ciracì, Grottaglie;

Roberto Cuoghi, Modena; Lara Favaretto, Treviso; Giuseppe Gabellone, Brindisi; Stefania Galegati, Bagnacavallo;

Luisa Lambri, Cantù; 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 Samorè, Faenza; Alessandra Tesi, Bologna; Sabrina Torelli, Reggio Emilia; Patrick Tuttofuoco, Milano;

Francesco Vezzoli, Brescia; Italo Zu, Imola!"



2

0 0 4

context

Space is the place_3 , curated by

Marco Altavilla

where

TPO at Euraquarium, Bologna

(Italy)

ESPRESSO. ARTE OGGI IN ITALIA

performers

Madcaps (Massimo Innocenti, bass guitar; Gianni

Martini, guitar; Aurelio Pasini, guitar; Daniele

Pelliconi, drums; Marco Pelliconi, keyboards) feat.

Italo Zu, voice

3 0 - 3 1

ZUFFI_impaginato14_LOWFEDERICA

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