Mariano Franzetti in Bologna with ‘Loro – Putty Toys Tricky’

Mariano Franzetti lands in Bologna with his’ Loro. Putty Toys Tricky ‘, scheduled from 19 to 21 November next in the Palazzo Hercolani in Bologna, in the spaces of Zefyro and Silaw Tax & Legal. The Italo-Argentine artist stages the project for the first time, which marks an important development in his creative path. Without renouncing the pictorial and neofigurative dimension, it now declines towards a material three-dimensionality rich in contrasts. On show a series of sculptures and tapestries featuring a strange and grotesque community of characters wearing iconic clothes from important fashion houses, such as Saint Laurent, Celine, Prada, Bottega Veneta, just to name a few. “The characters of ‘Putty Toys Tricky’ reflect well the contrasts of our time – says Franzetti -. Are they ugly but cool or maybe too cool but ugly? A strange and deformed community of individuals who, while wearing clothes of the most prestigious fashion brands, pose in anomalous positions, speak an incomprehensible language, moving in a strange and bizarre way. But it is precisely in their diversity and in their distance that these characters live and communicate. “Initially these small stucco sculptures were designed to replace the models in the impossibility of carrying out photo shoots for fashion during the lookdown of 2020 and they filled the days of the artist. Over time they multiplied, transforming themselves into grotesque characters, with deformed faces with little colored hair on their heads, but with super cool looks. Spontaneously an entire generation of ‘ugly but cool’ characters was born. working on this constant dualism, between reality and the desire to appear, in search of a non-canonical beauty such as that imposed by fashion, Franzetti has created these ‘beautiful losers’, which reflect well the contradictions of the reality that surrounds us. unlikely fashion victims then go on to compose real tableaux vivants, scenes that refer to well-known sacred iconographies or that refer to to songs from the Divine Comedy. An attraction towards sacred art that the artist drew from his legacy and training in Italy during which he visited the churches and abbeys in the Marche, Umbria and Emilia Romagna in a capillary way. In these new works Franzetti produces in a free flow using all the forms and techniques that have characterized his path over the years, humanoid sculptures with distorted expressions and movements, never at ease or perfectly placed in space, hand-made polychrome tapestries, paintings on canvas and watercolors, but also videos and photographs in collaboration with the video production house Ipnose Studio, and the photographer Antonio Managò.