Maurizio Nannucci

born 1939 in Florence, lives in Florence.

The illuminated blue letters of the neon installation “Blauer Ring” (Blue Circle) by Italian artist Maurizio Nannucci can be seen from outside the building through the glass façade of the library rotunda.

Installed directly beneath the ceiling of the library’s reading room, the blue neon band of text runs in a circle eighty metres long. Inspired by a text by Hannah Arendt, Nannucci runs two sentences together to highlight the state of tension between the notions of freedom and equality: “Liberty is conceivable as the possibility of action among equals/Equality is conceivable as the possibility of action for liberty”.

With these statements the artist describes two possibilities of action in a liberal state system, and the inevitable dilemma of any democracy – namely the question of finding the right balance of liberty and equality. The endless possibilities and constant challenge of conceptual thinking, and the impossibility of ever finding a conclusive answer to questions of freedom and equality, are emphatically expressed in the circular form of the work, where the words ‘freedom/freedom’ and ‘equals/ equality’ inevitably collide.