Milan, Franco Mazzucchelli's large inflatable sculptures in Darsena and Triennale

Until Wednesday, April 26, it will be possible to admire the large inflatable PVC sculptures by Franco Mazzucchelli (Milan, Italy, 1939) in some of the most significant places in Milan. In fact, the artist has returned to his city on the occasion of Design Week 2023 with the project Aria, terra, acqua, a double intervention involving the Giancarlo De Carlo Garden at the Milan Triennale (April 13-26) and the Darsena dei Navigli (April 14).

Franco Mazzucchelli has been known since the 1960s for creating inflatable PVC sculptures, often exhibited in urban and natural spaces or on bodies of water, in Italy and abroad. The project Air, Earth, Water, curated by Marina Pugliese and Alessandro Oldani with the collaboration of Gianmarco Cugusi, included the installation of two works. In the garden of Triennale Milano, Mazzucchelli intervenes with an installation titled Aperta parentesi, where two large arches fixed to the ground allude to a round parenthesis, a spatial pause that delimits a selection of Mazzucchelli’s iconic inflatables, displayed in rotation for the duration of the exhibition. The inflatables, light geometric elements typical of Mazzucchelli’s language, can in fact be freely moved around the garden, emerging from the given spaces as non-monumental, changeable and surprising signs. The architecture of the works and the configuration of the Triennale garden thus changes face during the exhibition thanks to the public called upon to shuffle the cards and reverse the given formulas.

The second stage of the exhibition and a central piece of the operation is Elica, a large inflatable specially made by Mazzucchelli and reminiscent of one of his historic actions, Abandonment of 1969, when a sculpture with a similar multi-curved shape was left free on the beach of Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer, Camargue. Propeller floats on the stretch of water of the Darsena dei Navigli, in the section towards Piazza XXIV Maggio. Two interventions that certainly do not go unnoticed.

Pictured: Franco Mazzucchelli, Elica. Photo: Giovanna Dal Magro

Milan, Franco Mazzucchelli's large inflatable sculptures in Darsena and Triennale

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