Gianni Piacentino

Gianni Piacentino (Coazze, Turin, 1945) is one of the most singular and unclassifiable figures in contemporary Italian art. He came of age in the Turin scene of the 1960s and made his debut alongside the Arte Povera artists at Gian Enzo Sperone’s gallery in 1966 — but quickly charted his own course, distinct from both American Minimalism and the rough materiality of his contemporaries.

At the heart of his practice is absolute technical control: surfaces lacquered, painted and polished with meticulous precision, aerodynamic forms evoking vehicle prototypes, wings and objects suspended between industrial design and pure sculpture. Line, colour and finish are never incidental — they are the work’s content. He was invited to Documenta 6 in Kassel in 1977 and participated in the Venice Biennale in 1993. In 2015 Fondazione Prada dedicated a major retrospective to him, curated by Germano Celant. His works are held at the GAM in Turin, Museo MADRE in Naples, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and PS1 MoMA in New York.