Enzo Cucchi is one of the great masters of Italian art, and is still considered one of the most productive and innovative contemporary artists in this country, so much so that he has become a model for an entire generation of young artists. His artistic production uses a variety of languages: signs, symbols, mixed media, but also large-format painting, verses hurriedly jotted down on pieces of paper, monumental images, and words . . . elements that all lead back to a new conception of art-making, as well as to the relevance of the artist in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This volume, the companion to the exhibition Enzo Cucchi. Poet and Magician that will be held between May and November 2023 at MAXXI in Rome, sheds light on the freedom of character of an artist whose research hinges on poetry and the written word, and who, through an extreme variety of techniques, has overturned the idea of a single language with which to describe the present.
The artist’s works will not be presented in chronological order, but rather collected according to themes and assonances. In this manner we will be able to explore his production of ceramics, small bronze figurines, graphic works, drawings, as well as his artist books.
Luigia Lonardelli earned a Master’s degree in curatorship at the Facoltà di Architettura di Valle Giulia, Rome, in 2005, and in 2009 she graduated from the Scuola di Specializzazione in Siena with a thesis on the history of photography. In 2012 she received her doctorate. Since 2005 she has cooperated with the Direzione Generale per l’Arte Contemporanea, dealing mainly with the promotion of Italian art abroad and following the activity leading up to the opening of MAXXI, where she began working as a researcher in 2010. Since 2011, she has worked in the Museum’s curatorial department. She co-curated the XVI Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome, was an art consultant for the most recent appendix of the Enciclopedia Treccani, and is part of the scientific committee of the Fondazione Maria Lai.
Bartolomeo Pietromarchi was born in Rome in 1968. He is an art critic and curator, and since May 2016 he has directed MAXXI Arte, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo. From 2011 to 2013 he directed MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. From 1998 to 2003 he directed the contemporary art program of the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, of which he was also the director between 2003 and 2007. In 2007 and 2008 he was a curator for the Fondazione Hangar Bicocca in Milan. He is the author of many essays and volumes on art. He also curated the Italian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).