Nunzio
Among the leading exponents of Italian sculpture, Nunzio dedicated himself to investigating the expressive and formal possibilities of matter and its interrelationships with space and light through works often full of metaphorical meanings. He has obtained significant awards, from the 2000 prize for young people at the Venice Biennale in 1987 to the Honorable Mention of the same Biennale in 1995.
After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome with Toti Scialoja, he made his debut in 1980 with series of large wavy and irregular painted plaster surfaces, composed of two or three elements anchored to the wall, which immediately mark the artist's career, always oriented towards exploring the expressive possibilities of matter and its relationship with light and space. From the mid-1980s he began to use new materials (iron, foils) creating more structured and geometrically rigorous shapes and began burning wood, sometimes together with the use of lead, which characterize his mature production. Since the 1990s he has also dedicated himself to drawing, pastels and mixed techniques, elaborating suggestive abstract forms that often prelude to sculptural activity, in which he also experiments with the use of bronze. After the first one-man show in Bolzano (Galleria Spatia, 1981) and the group shows in the early 1980s with the so-called artists of the "New Roman School", working in the San Lorenzo district of Rome, at the La Salita galleries and above all the Attico, he continued to exhibit in important exhibitions both in Italy and abroad (New York, Annina Nosei Gallery, 1985; Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe, 1990-91; Perugia, Rocca Paolina, 1992; Spoleto, Festival dei due mondi, 1993; Osaka, Kodama Gallery, 1994; Bologna, Gallery of Modern Art, Villa delle Rose, 1995; Bergamo, Galleria Fumagalli, 2000). In 2005 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (MACRO) dedicated a major anthology to him. In 2007 he took part in the group show San Lorenzo in Rome, at Villa Medici and two years later he took part in the MartRovereto Italia Contemporanea.
His works are present in permanent public and private collections, including the GAM in Turin, the GNAM in Rome, the MAXXI in Rome, the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna, the Maramotti Foundation in Reggio Emilia, the Biedermann Museum in Donaueschingen. In 2016 he exhibited at the Madre in Naples, and the Museo Riso in Palermo dedicated the most recent personal exhibition to him; In 2017 he is among the protagonists of the exhibition “YTALIA-Energia Pensiero Bellezza. Everything is connected”, at the Forte di Belvedere and other locations in Florence.
