Emilio Isgrò is the inventor of the cancellatura (“erasure”). Since the early 1960s, he has systematically removed words from printed books, encyclopaedias, manuscripts, maps, and film reels, developing one of the most radical and recognisable gestures in Italian conceptual art. A visual artist, poet, writer, playwright, and director, Isgrò has remained faithful throughout decades of research to an aesthetic operation that is at once a linguistic act and a critique of textual authority. His work has been included in the Venice Biennale in 1972, 1978, 1986, and 1993, and in 1977 he was awarded the First Prize at the São Paulo Biennial. He lives and works in Milan.