Meccano

Tano Pisano

We present a unique exhibition, with many pieces previously shown at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence during the summer of 2023. Meccano. An approach that appears technical, almost engineering-like, to objects that in our imagination evoke playfulness and childhood. But let us not be fooled: these meccanos are true works of art in every sense. They take us —as all great art should— to that essential place: aesthetic emotion. Whether it strikes like a punch, unfolds with a wry half-smile, or descends like a gentle, steady, sensitive rain.

These artistic artifacts —always strange and estranged— suddenly emerge in our daily lives and astonish us. For as we gaze upon them, we realize they point to something intangible that speaks directly to us. We cannot stop looking at the meccanos; curious at first, then alert, and ultimately bewildered by the story they tell under their spell.

From the original metallic object, brightly colored and concrete, we quickly move into abstraction. What once resembled a tree, a bicycle, or a horse’s head becomes a sculpture that unsettles us with its unusual presence. Yes, on first glance, they are playthings. But clearly, they are a very serious kind of play — with a full, intentional artistic gesture.

We live in uncertain, overly vaporous times, where perfidy looms like a dark and devastating angel.These meccanos sketch out other worlds for us — worlds of superb raffinatezza, of great delicacy and lucid irony that accompanies our gaze. And in the end, as the Bolognese art critic Marilena Pasquali once wrote about the work of our artist: after everything, everything, everything, “what remains… is beauty.”