Emilio Isgrò — Nun è peccato (2025)

Emilio Isgrò (b. 1937, Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto) is one of the major protagonists of Italian contemporary art and the inventor of the cancellatura: the gesture of erasing words, transformed from subtraction into an operative language capable of assigning new meaning to memory, knowledge and communication.

Realised in 2025, Nun è peccato belongs to the most recent phase of that research, in which the vocabulary of erasure continues to renew itself while keeping its conceptual force intact. The title, in dialect, immediately evokes a popular and universal dimension, placing conscience, freedom and cultural identity at the centre of the work.

As elsewhere in Isgrò's practice, the word becomes visual matter: what remains legible acquires greater intensity precisely because of what has been cancelled. The mixed technique on paper, mounted on wood, gives the work a material presence and solidity that amplify the dialogue between text and image, and invites a slow, personal reading.

His work is held in the collections of the Uffizi, the MAXXI, the Museo del Novecento and the Centre Pompidou, and has represented Italy in international exhibitions including several editions of the Venice Biennale.