Courtesy Collezione MAXXI
Enzo Cucchi (b. 1949, Morro d’Alba, Italy) is one of the central figures of the Transavanguardia movement in Italy in the 1980s– a resurgence of Neo-Expressionism, along with Francesco Clemente and Sandro Chia. At the age of 36, Cucchi was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, spanning the entire rotunda. His interest in the interaction between different arts and disciplines has led him to work in diverse fields, from the visual arts to architecture, design, and fashion, and to grasp the importance of the relationship between these areas.
In recent years, he has specifically designed permanent works for different cities: the mosaic for the Museum of Art in Tel Aviv; the monumental ceramic for the Ala Mazzoniana of Termini Station in Rome; two ceramic works for the Stazione Salvator Rosa designed by Mendini in the Naples subway; paintings for the Chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Tamaro Mount; and iconography for the Church of San Giacomo Apostolo in Ferrara. He designed “Ideal Fountains,” one in Toronto, one in the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, one in Catanzaro, and a new one is now installed in Ancona. These works show that a language based on the relationship between the narrative force of sign and the formal manipulation of the signifier can relate to the complexity of urban space and individual cultural contexts within which it operates.
Enzo Cucchi has presented numerous solo exhibitions and taken part in group shows at renowned international museums such as the Kunsthalle Basel; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Castello di Rivoli, Turin; the Palazzo Reale, Milan; the Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo; the Academy of France, Villa Medici, Rome; and the Musée d’Art Moderne of Saint-Étienne Métropole. He has also participated in the most important contemporary art exhibitions internationally, including the Venice Biennale, documenta in Kassel, and the Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome. His works are in the world’s major museum collections and many prestigious private collections.