Tano Pisano's Capricci and contrade on display in Siena

From April 2 to June 5, 2022, the spaces of the Magazzini del Sale in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico will host the exhibition Capricci di Tano Pisano, sponsored by the City Council, under the patronage of the Region of Tuscany.

One hundred and fifty works will be on display, including oil paintings on canvas and paper, watercolors, charcoals, etchings, and then sculptures, ceramics, vases, mechani and mobiles (wooden sculptures that move). The exhibition will in part be the completion of the previous artistic chapter dedicated to Siena: in fact, in Il gioco del cavallo, set up in the same venue in the fall of 2020, in addition to offering both stylistic and technical variations on the theme of the animal, the artist had also paid homage with paintings to seven of the seventeen Sienese contrade: the Aquila, the Bruco, the Civetta, the Nicchio, the Chiocciola, the Onda and the Istrice. In Capricci, Tano Pisano will also pay homage to the other ten contrade (Drago, Giraffa, Leocorno, Lupa, Oca, Pantera, Selva, Tartuca, Torre and Valdimontone) with as many creations. “I will again pay homage to the contrade of Siena,” Pisano says, “but in a different way. In the exhibition two years ago, when I dedicated a work to each of the first seven contrade, there was always the horse as the main subject and then the symbol of the contrada next to it. This time, however, the Goose, the She-wolf and the others missing from the roll call I painted them in my own way, always with a figurative, popular painting.”

New to this second Sienese exhibition are the Capricci, fantastical creations that have always accompanied the artist’s long career. Dragons, creatures on the edge of reality and fantasy, but also pure inventions or artistic satire, all typical stylistic features of Tano Pisano. The Capricci made their appearance in 2015 at the Museu de la Mediterrània in Torroella de Montgrí, in the Spanish province of Girona, when an entire exhibition was dedicated to Tano Pisano’s fantastical creatures. “We all need a certain normality,” says Tano Pisano, “the reason to avoid everything that is happening in the world today. From this reflection my ’whimsies’ were born, animals, little monsters, dragons that lead us to freedom and that I am presenting for the first time in Italy.”

Hours: Daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Tickets: Full 6 euros, reduced 4.50 euros.

Image: Tano Pisano, Zebra and Snail (2019; vinyl on canvas, 95 x 143 cm)

Tano Pisano's Capricci and contrade on display in Siena

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