The Height Whirls, Stronger Than You, Even, is the first solo exhibition of Franco Mazzucchelli (b. 1939, Milan) in Asia. The exhibition includes works from the series Bieca Decorazione, a series of mixed media compositions, a film and several freestanding inflatable PVC sculptures. The first part of the exhibition is dedicated to Bieca Decorazione. The term, coined by the artist, translates to “pure decoration,” referring ironically to the decorative function of contemporary art, having lost its meaning in the 21st century. Bieca Decorazione assert their very objecthood. The canvases in both installations covered walls to create a soft architecture, altering one’s perception of space. 

The mixed media compositions in the exhibition refer to two public interventions the artist enacted in the seventies, A. to A. (Priori Square, Volterra, 1973) and A. to A. (High School of Art, Turin, 1971). The photographs used in the first group of mixed media compositions are documentation of a performance activated in front of a cathedral in Volterra in 1973. The latter series document the day when Mazzucchelli abandoned several inflatable sculptures at a local art high school in Turin, to the curiosity and joy of the children.

Visitors are confronted in the last part of the exhibition with several large, geometric inflatable sculptures: three cones, one six-meter-long inflatable spiral and a sphere. The works were previously exhibited in 2017 with ChertLüdde, where they overtook the gallery interior, to the confusion and delight of visitors. Originally meant to stand outside, the cones became giant, playful intrusions on conventional notions of space.

Excerpt from introduction essay for Franco Mazzucchelli: The Height Whirls, Stronger Than You, Even  |  Joan Lee (ChertLüdde)