From 26 September 2026 to 27 February 2027 the Galleria Poggiali of Florence presents Enzo Cucchi vs Canemorto / Canemorto vs Enzo Cucchi, a novel exhibition project based on the comparison between two radically different approaches to artistic practice. On one side is Enzo Cucchi (Morro d'Alba, 1949), a leading exponent of the Italian Transavanguardia, whose research has left its mark on the history of art; on the other is Canemorto, an anonymous collective set up in 2007 and now one of the most innovative actors on the contemporary art scene.

The encounter between Enzo Cucchi and Canemorto is exceptional precisely because it sets up a relation between one of the most authoritative figures of contemporary international art and one of the most original collectives of recent years on the Italian scene. Rather than setting two poetics in dialogue, the Galleria Poggiali project brings into play two systems of working, two imaginaries, and two different concepts of authorship. The result is a direct comparison, built up over time through a continuous exchange of ideas, gestures and images in which neither plays either a leading role or that of privileged counterpart.

The entire project took shape over the course of several months between November 2025 and June 2026. Shared working sessions at the historic Litografia Bullain Rome – the place where Enzo Cucchi and Canemorto first met in 2022 – and in the artist’s home in Morro d'Alba, alternated with lengthy exchanges developed at a distance, leading to the construction between them of a creative process based on reciprocal rebound. In effect, every work emerges as a response to the previous one, building into a sequence of actions that feed into each other, transforming the artistic work into an open and continually evolving conversation.

At the centre of this experience are the drawing and primal language that both the artistic ventures share. Drawing, understood not as a preparatory phase but as an autonomous language, becomes the favoured ground for the encounter: a space in which gesture, sign and thought appear in their most essential form, making visible the creative process of both parties. For Enzo Cucchi it has always represented the generative nucleus of his research; for Canemorto it is a free, instinctive and collective tool that can traverse different techniques and media. And it is precisely in the drawing that the comparison reaches its greatest intensity, becoming the place in which differences are not attenuated but displayed and put constantly to the test.

While drawing constitutes the common ground that triggers the comparison, the exhibition also extends to painting through a set of works made especially for the occasion. Alongside the works on canvas and wood by Canemorto, the display itinerary also includes a series of new works on canvas by Enzo Cucchi, some very large, conceived specifically for this show.

The exhibition is structured so as to transfer the dialogue and the exchange driving the creative process into the display space. Consequently, the project develops in the two separate premises of the Galleria Poggiali, just a few metres from each other, giving rise to two independent and specular exhibits.

In the Via della Scala 35/A space, in Canemorto vs Enzo Cucchi it is the collective that sets the rules of the game, selecting the works, constructing the layout and defining its own display itinerary.

In Via Benedetta 3r, in Enzo Cucchi vs Canemorto it is instead Enzo Cucchi who elaborates his own totally personal reading of this same comparison, choosing the works, the rhythm and the construction of the space based on his own sensitivity.

Therefore, the two shows are not two chapters of the same exhibition, but two independent interpretations of a single creative process. Each artist symbolically enters the territory of the other, accepting its conditions and constructing his own story without sacrificing his own identity. The visitor is invited to traverse two complementary perspectives, which observe, respond to, and contradict each other without ever seeking a definitive synthesis.

The project also extends to the editorial dimension through the production of a limitededition banner conceived as a collectors’ multiple. The six-metre-long banner has been produced jointly by Enzo Cucchi and Canemorto together with the authors of the two critical essays, Alessandro Cucchi and Antonio Grulli. The work is symbolically divided into two halves, developing from each side up to the central point where images and words meet, thus transforming critical writing too into a space of contamination and exchange.

The show Enzo Cucchi vs Canemorto / Canemorto vs Enzo Cucchi is equally far removed from the notion of retrospective and from that of a generational tribute. What it actually proposes is a model of relation founded on reciprocal recognition and the complete autonomy of the two artistic experiences. The comparison is not aimed at either convergence or mediation, but is left deliberately open, unresolved, and dynamic. It is precisely this continual tension that turns the project into an experience in which languages, generations, and imaginaries put themselves reciprocally to the test.

The show is accompanied by critical essays by Alessandro Cucchi and Antonio Grulli, who were asked to take part in the project not as mere observers but as active participants in this sophisticated frame of comparison.