“Braccia” is a two-stage project by the artist Alessandro Biggio (Cagliari, 1974), born from the need to experiment with a different relationship between conception and realization in the production of the work of art. Supported by the MAN Museum of Nuoro and the Marino Marini Museum of Florence, the project sees, for the exhibitions scheduled at the MAN Museum, the participation of six international artists – Alexandra Bircken (Cologne, Germany 1967), Michael Höpfner (Krems, Austria 1972 ), Luca Francesconi (Mantua, Italy 1979), J. Parker Valentine (Austin, USA 1980), Ian Pedigo (Anchorage, USA 1973) and Luca Trevisani (Verona, Italy 1979).

The artists involved, selected by Biggio according to criteria of affinity and proximity to his own work, were asked to develop a project for the creation of an unpublished work starting from some general information, different from time to time, and from the exchange what resulted from it. Once the project was defined, Biggio took charge of its implementation, keeping faith with the indications received.

All the works were created in Sardinia, where Biggio resides, far from their intellectual authors. The condition of distance, together with the principle of delegation, becomes one of the key elements of this project. In addition to the emergence of specific dynamics linked to the creative processes of the work of art, “Arms” seeks to break the semantic association between the concepts of insularity and isolation, promoting an alternative idea of ​​insularity, as a place of relationship.

The project conceived by Biggio also opens a discussion on the principle of authorship, revealing widespread mechanisms in the art production system. Who is the author of the works created? How do the mind and arms interact? And how much do they depend on each other? And viceversa? The choice to trace the authorship of the works produced to both subjects – therefore to the different intellectual authors, but also always to Biggio himself – promotes the idea that in each of the two generative moments of the work – the intellectual and the material – there is a creative component, as obvious as it is difficult to recognise.

The paths to arrive at the definition of the projects and the way of understanding the relationship between creator and material executor are extremely different for each of the artists involved. The duration and intensity of the discussion are different and the level of detail of the different projects, the level of involvement during its implementation and its actual duration are different.

Specifically for this first stage in Nuoro, Luca Francesconi developed a project starting from a material full of suggestions and implications: Pau obsidian. Luca Trevisani’s work focuses on the concept of border (inside/outside; perishable/lasting ). Distance, silence, journey, are some of the recurring words in the long exchange with Michael Höpfner. With Ian Pedigo the work takes shape starting from reflections and exchanges on the relationships between transparency, architecture and body. The path taken with J. Parker Valentine led to a three-dimensional drawing, a spine, a worm, a stem. Finally, a saddle, the body and absence are the elements from which Alexandra Bircken’s project took shape.

A bilingual catalog with the documentation of all the works carried out as part of the project will be published, thanks to the contribution of the Banco di Sardegna Foundation, on the occasion of the second exhibition, scheduled at the Marino Marini Museum in Florence starting next December.