"Braccia" - a project in two phases by artist Alessandro Biggio (Cagliari, 1974) - stems from the need to experiment a different relationship between the conception and the production of a work of art. Supported by MAN in Nuoro and the Museo Marino Marini in Florence, MAN has organized a first exhibition of six international artists: Alexandra Bircken (Cologne, Germany 1967), Michael Höpfner (Krems, Austria 1972), Luca Francesconi (Mantova, Italy 1979), J. Parker Valentine (Austin , USA, 1980), Ian Pedigo (Anchorage, US , 1973) and Luca Trevisani (Verona, Italy 1979). The Marino Marini Museum will host the second part of the project in December.

The artists, selected by Biggio according to the degree of affinity with his own work, were asked to produce a project for the creation of a new work starting from some general information (different for each artist) and the resulting exchanges. Once the projects were defined, Biggio took over their production, respecting the artists’ specifications. All the work was carried out in Sardinia where Biggio resides, far from their intellectual authors. The condition of distanceand the principle of proxy are the project’s key elements. Aside from some of the specific dynamics inherent in the artistic process that emerged, “Braccia” seeks to fracture the semantic association between the concepts of insularity and isolation, promoting an alternative idea of insularity as a place of relation.

Biggio’s project also opens the discussion of the principle of authorship revealing widespread mechanisms in the system of production of works of art. Who is the author? How do minds and muscles interact? And to what degree do they depend upon one another? The decision to attribute authorship of the works in the show to both subjects – hence to the different intellectual authors, but also to Biggio - promotes the idea that, in each of the two generative moments of the work of art - the intellectual and the material, there is a creative component that is as obvious as it is difficult to recognize.

The process of defining the projects and the ways of understanding the relationship between creator and producer are very different for each of the artists involved. The durations and intensities of the discussions were different as are the levels of detail in the various projects and the artists’ involvement during the production phase.

Specifically, in this first exhibition in Nuoro, Luca Francesconi presents a project starting from a material charged with suggestion and implication: obsidian stone from the town of Pau. Luca Trevisani focuses on the concept of the edge (inside/outside; perishable/durable). Distance, silence, the path are some of the recurring themes in the long exchange with Michael Höpfner. Ian Pedigo's work takes shape from reflections on the relationship between transparency, architecture and the body. J. Parker Valentine’s ideas led to a three-dimensional drawing: a backbone, a worm, a stem. Finally, Alexandra Bircken’s project was based on a saddle, the body and the idea of absence.

A bilingual catalogue documenting the work will be published for the second show scheduled to open in December at the Marino Marini Museum in Florence with support from Fondazione Banco di Sardegna.