Maurizio Nannucci

Writing and colour are at the heart of Italian artist Marizio Nannucci's multifaceted artistic practice (books, photographs, sound installations, performance, neon writings, etc.). A major figure in Italian conceptual art and affiliated with Fluxus – an artistic movement that emerged in the 1960s and sought to break down the boundaries between art and life – he explores the relationship between art, language and image.

Conceived in 1988 for the exhibition La couleur seule, l'expérience du monochrome [Colour alone, the monochrome experience] in Lyon, France, this work refers to two famous figures in monochrome painting: Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), known for his slashed canvases, and Yves Klein (1928-1962), who patented an ultramarine blue, “International Klein Blue”, which he considered a symbol of immateriality and infinity. Maurizio Nannucci began working with neon writing in 1967. He made it “a means of writing in monochrome or polychrome”, a way of highlighting his 1964 typescripts, pages of typewritten text where the word blue is written in blue, red in red, etc. In Blue Klein/Rosa Fontana, a play on language takes place between the words and their formatting; the intermittent light activates and draws the immaterial contours of the work. With a minimal gesture, the artist thus diverts a device mainly used in advertising displays and questions what art is and its function. Now permanently installed on the façade of the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, these flashing fluorescent neon lights catch the eye and bring the museum to life at nightfall.