Background
Gianni Piacentino was born in 1945 in Coazze, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
University of Turin
Gianni Piacentino was born in 1945 in Coazze, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
In 1965 Gianni Piacentino enrolled in the University of Turin where he studied philosophy until 1966.
Piacentino first exhibited with Arte Povera artists at Galleria Sperone, Turin in 1966 and then in Milan the following year. While involved with the Arte Povera movement in its infancy and cited as one of its founders, Gianni abandoned it early on. It was during that brief period, from 1965 to 1969, that Piacentino created his minimal sculptures as well as a series of acrylics on canvas which the painting "AMARILLIS", created in 1965, surmises well. "DARK DULL PINK LARGE X", created in 1966, is an example of the meticulously varnished, minimal objects he created while exhibiting with other Arte Povera artists.
Even during his studies, Gianni Piacentino worked for a year as a disc jockey and worked part-time at a paint factory that produced special paints from 1967 to 1968. Following his break from the Arte Povera group in 1968, he purchased a 1930s Indian motorcycle that deepened his lifelong fascination, as well as an intimate knowledge of the vehicle. That passion heavily influenced his work as an artist and eventually led to him participating in numerous motorcycle races, both as driver and sidecar passenger. In 1969 Piacentino began his "Vehicles" and "Wings" series which would not be associated with the Arte Povera movement.
The 1970s marked a shift in Gianni Piacentino's oeuvre. The works he produced during that period were not unadorned pieces that have caused parallels to be drawn between him and West Coast American Minimalists but rather successful works. The same attention to detail and refined surfaces that is exampled in Piacentino's early works is still present in pieces such as "GRAY AND AMARANTH DECORATED AND INITIALED RECTANGULAR BAR", created in 1971, but with the incorporation of the artist's initials, "GP," into his work. Piacentino's work continued to evolve. From 1972 to 1973 Piacentino created his first large canvas on the Wright Brothers, "WRIGHT BROTHERS G.P. (I): prospect with propellers on vertical." In June 1977 he even participated in "Document 6."
Gianni Piacentino lived and worked in New York City from 1980 to 1981. Works he created during that period include "FLIGHT I - S.M. 55 - G.P.: front image on purple-gray vertical rectangle with side wings" and "G.P. FLIGHT TRIPTYCH: S.M. 55 profile and prospect on horizontal." In October 1981, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen put on a solo exhibition of Piacentino's work. The show encompassed a range of his work, from a minimal sculpture begun in 1966 to a painting completed in 1981.
In 1993, Piacentino participated in XLV Venice Biennale in Venice. In November 2015 Fondazione Prada hosted an extensive solo show of Piacentino's work. Curated by Germano Celant, it consisted of 90 works ranging from 1965 to 2015. Gianni Piacentino currently lives and works in Turin, Italy.
Metalliod Blue-Gray Without Oval Sculpture
Frontal 4 (P.A.S.)_5
Responsive Eye
Intense blue-gray portal III, 1
Blue-gray pearlescent propeller-shaped
Pearl Frame Vehicle with Violet-Blue Triangle Tank
Violet-Red Small Pole, I
Pink-Yellow Pole III
Turquoise-Gray Upside Down T
Bivest + 1
Cross Race 1 (H.R.V.F.W.)
Silver Wing with Crown
Dull-Amaranth Disk
Metalloid beige-gray shored-up door way, I
Piacentino’s work is a kind of Pop-influenced minimalism, high on speed and paint fumes.
Quotations: "I like to invent things that are usual. I made them in inhuman, absurd dimensions; in them, there is always the sense of uselessness, of decoration and of invention [...]. It was a work of softening the form, more typical of the cabinet than of the sculptor."
Gianni was the member of the Arte Povera movement, but he broke from the group in 1967.
Quotes from others about the person
It is in this historical climate of oscillation between art and design, handicrafts and industry, the useful and the useless, the one-off piece and the mass-produced object, that we can place the contribution of Piacentino, whose otherness and uniqueness lie precisely in the dialectic between the two poles, Pop and Minimal. Since 1966 his sculptures have been aiming for a result that transcends the functional object, even though the latter remains recognizable as a possible industrial product with decorative characteristics, as it is derived from a culture steeped in applied science, handicrafts and the precision of mechanics and sophisticated engineering processes.
