IO NON VOGLIO MORIRE, presented by Associazione Barriera in collaboration with Galleria Gaburro (Verona/Milan) and curated by Sergey Kantsedal, is a solo show by Ruben Montini (Oristano, 1986), organised on the occasion of Colazione a Barriera 2026. The exhibition puts the Italian artist’s practice in dialogue with Hermann Nitsch (Vienna, 1938 – Mistelbach, 2022).

For the occasion, Montini presents a body of works alongside the new performative piece which gives the project its name. Through performance, happenings, sculpture, and textile-based works, his research explores themes of identity and vulnerability, with particular attention to the lived experiences, struggles, and forms of resistance of LGBTQIA+ communities.

A central core of the exhibition is a series of newly produced sculptural works by Montini that revisit some of the artist’s earlier performances, connected by the gesture of marking and by the violence of a language inscribed upon the body. Montini revisits these actions today: not simply as documentation, but as a new materialisation of the performative act, capable of reactivating its physical, symbolic and political dimensions while opening a further chapter in his research. This ongoing investigation of the body culminates in IO NON VOGLIO MORIRE, a new participatory performance, developed around the queer body as a site of encounter, resilience, and collective expression.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a monograph dedicated to Ruben Montini will be presented. Published by Maretti Editore, the publication features texts by Eva Brioschi, Sergey Kantsedal, Oscarito Sanchez and Eugenio Viola.