Index: Ruggero Maggi

Biography

Ruggero Maggi was born in Turin, Italy in 1950. Today he lives in Milan.
Maggi is an Italian artist who got involved with the mail art network in 1975. He had been involved in visual poetry starting in 1973.

His interests are: visual poetry (since 1973), copy art, artists’ books and Mail Art (since 1975), laser art (1976), holography (1979), x-ray art (1980) und chaotic art, based on the theory of chaos (since 1985).
Since 1975 Maggi had been arranging several Mail Art events and projects. In 1979 he organized the first Mail Art show in Milan and the following year he did his first Mail Art project “Amazonic Trip” (dedicated to Abel Luis, E. A. Vigo’s son).

He had been shown in several exhibitions around the world. He participated in the 49th Biennial in Venice in the project “Poetic bunker” and in the Sao Paulo Biennial (1980). Since 1985 he has also been involved in chaotic art based on the study of chaos, fractals, entropy, etc. One of his projects entitled “United for the peace” was inspired by the Malvinas War. He worked with John Held on the Shadow Project to commemorate the Hiroshima Holocaust.
In 2007 he was curator at the 52nd Biennial in Venice and showed his project “Camera 312 – promemoria per Pierre”, dedicated to Pierre Restany. In 2008 he was curator of the project “Depth 45 – Michelangelo at work” and in 2009 he arranged a site-specific installation on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

About his AMAZON Archive, Maggi states “I decided to found an international archive dedicated to artistic projects and works about Nature in a general way and about Amazon in a specific one”
According to Pierre Restany, “Truth is the fundamental criterion of Maggi’s aesthetics” (www.ruggeromaggi.it ). His fanzine is entitled Playcare.