Galleria Mucciaccia presents the solo exhibition of Gianni Piacentino with over thirty works on display from 1966 to the present day. Following his recent shows at Center d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (2013) and Prada Foundation in Milan (2015-2016). The exhibition is an unique opportunity to discover the artist, one of the most interesting and unique figures on the international art scene at the moment.

The exhibition, open to the public until January 15, 2018, tracks Piacentino’s career not in a strictly chronological order, but according to the point of view of the artist himself, choosing to display together past and recent works to emphasise elements of continuity in his work, but also to underline specific moments and periods.

Galleria Mucciaccia, presents his most recent Metallic works which are shown for the first time to the public in this occasion. Piacentino revisits in shapes, sizes and colours the monochrome of 1965 in metallic industrial colours, and TRANS-CHROME of the years 1966-67. The artist changes the colours through a special technique, with a transparent chrome finish that creates brand new iridescent brightness.

These works show a sort of temporal shortcircuit between classicism and contemporaneity defined by Piacentino as “self-manierism”.

He works on colour as a concrete matter, incorporating his characteristic highly technological treatments and processes directly inspired by aesthetics and industrial processing. The result is an unusual virtuosity brightness, echoing the great masters of the past, the golden funds of Byzantine icons, the soft velvet of Titian, the reflections of the famous Vermeer pearl earring, which Piacentino reproduces in contemporary terms in the anonymous language of his works.

Among the works of the 1960s on display, the Yellow-Ochre Fence Object (1967-68), which was exhibited in the important exhibition “Arte povera” held at the Galleria De ‘Foscherari of Bologna in 1968.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual monograph in Italian and English (Cambi editore), edited by Francesca Pola, whose cover was designed by the artist. The catalogue is a large critical anthology that retraces the uninterrupted international career of the artist articulated between drawings, projects, biographies and repertoire, historical outfits, catalogs, invitations and other documents of various kinds.

Born in Coazze (Turin) in 1945, Gianni Piacentino begins his career with the Povera Art group, in the mid-1960s, He leaves the group very early to dedicate himself to create prototypes of two-and three-wheeled vehicles with industrial materials. These sculptures with geometric shapes made in painted and varnished wood developed an original painting technique.

His works have been exhibited in Europe since 1966 in public spaces such as Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid; Gallery of Modern Art of Bologna and Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome; National Gallery of Berlin, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen and Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund; PS1 in New York as well as numerous private galleries. In 1977 he was invited to participate in Documenta 6 and in 1993 at the XLV Biennale of Venice. His works are part of the permanent collections of Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin and Reggio Emilia Museum, Power Institute of Fine Arts in Sidney (Australia), National Gallery of Berlin and Neuen Museums Weserburg, Bremen.