“Being able to say it” is the title of the project Italo Zuffi for the MAN Museum, the second of a series of in-depth moments on the artist’s work launched last February by Nomas Foundation of Rome and destined to involve, during 2015, the de Appel Arts Centre of Amsterdam and thear/ge kunst of Bolzano.

Exposure to the MAN is revealing of the two distinct research paths present in the artist’s work: a more intimate side, of introspective investigation, and one linked to the analysis of his relationship with the art system, always visualized and resolved with an autobiographical filter.

Work belongs to the first strand Double poems , created in 2014, one performance in which Zuffi plays some his poems written over the last few years. The content of the poems offers a look at the time of relationships, “on a body awareness, in transit towards an existential lightening”. The recitation of the poems from memory takes place on the basis of a choreography aimed at creating a distraction, as well as proposing a mirroring exercise.

The second work on display, Incentives , is a new production created on the occasion of the project at MAN, conceived as a direct dialogue with the art system , of which they are evoked internal rules and collective logics of legitimation . A cycle of texts on canvas that reflect on the relationship between production of works and their circulation through promotional and market systems. These new works, presented in the spaces of the museum’s project room, continue the verification process started by the artist in 2010, around the concept of “competition” understood as a representation of what concerns both work dissemination strategies, is the places and agents in which these are activated . In this case, the work questions the economy of the artist in the broader context of the art market.

The exhibition at MAN will be accompanied by a laboratory with the master’s students first level in Law and Economics of Art and Culture ( Decamaster ) organized by the Faculty of Law of the University of Sassari in collaboration with UniNuoro and the Banco di Sardegna Foundation. The laboratory involves carrying out a series of group exercises, aimed at developing a critical analysis of the viewing and experience of the work in a system context.

Italo Zuffi (Imola, 1969. Lives in Milan) in his work he uses sculpture, performance, photography and writing to create “not a total drawing, but an indefinite series of rooms” (Pier Luigi Tazzi, 2003). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna ( Diploma in Painting , 1993), and at Central St Martins College of Art & Design in London ( Master of Arts , 1997). In 2001 he was awarded the Wheatley Bequest Fellowship in Sculpture at the Institute of Art & Design in Birmingham (GB). He has been a professor of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in L’Aquila since February 2015, and since 2011 he has been Guest-Lecturer in Performance at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (NL).

Personal exhibitions (recent): What you were, and what you are , Nomas Foundation, Rome; The unaware , private apartment, Milan (2013); The penultimate absence of the body , Pietro Rossini Foundation, Briosco (2012); Zuffi, Italo , Pinksummer, Genoa (2010).

Group exhibitions (recent): Revolution exercises , a project by Maxxi and Nomas Foundation, Maxxi, Rome (2014); The laws of hospitality , P420 Gallery, Bologna (2014); Per4m , Artissima, Turin (2014); The child’s mustache , Lucie Fontaine, Milan (2014); La Pelle – Symphony of Destruction , MAXXX Project Space, Sierre (2014); The hot statues , Marino Marini Museum, Florence (2014); Drive my car , OPENING Via Pola, Milan (2013); Italy Tropics , Angelo Mai Altrove Occupato, Rome (2013); The discreet charm of the object. Figure 2: Still life, GNAM, Rome (2013); Almanac , Newman Popiashvili gallery, New York (2013); Outstanding , Villa Reale, Milan (2012), Me xico City Blues , Shanaynay, Paris (2012) and New York Gallery, New York (2012).