Gianfranco Meggiato. Art shaped
by Alain Chivilò
Gianfranco Meggiato sculptor, in the contemporary art, is one of the few artists that mold the material. Following Michelangelo credo the Venetian Master, while creating a concept, immediately “thinks the image because it is in the deep of his mind so it’s necessary only undress it”. Therefore Meggiato act, as during Renaissance, crosses from monumental works conceived for public external, to unique pieces for collectors, closing to goldsmith’s art. A contemporary geometry that suddenly becomes lymph for sculptures, taking organic forms, dark worlds, solar discs, pyramids and ellipses from which material digressions open in sinuous shapes, soft and sometimes baroque. A decoration not simpering, but in line with the central core of the work which in most cases is circular, typically ball. Each work is a small galaxy, where an indefinite gravity holds around itself, through different geometric shapes, tubes and vibrating loops that wrap, radiate or leave an open cross-section inside the core. There are no mechanism ungovernable, but only biological cards that give inspiration to countless creations. Negativity and positivity alternate in a constant flux of emotions in which the bronze, “raw” or shiny mirror, creates hypothetical but real states of being. The swift technical of realization is the medium through the Master starts with sketches and preparatory drawings arriving, after several steps of realization, to the bronze lost wax fusion. As in an old Renaissance workshop, he creates and develops models with an international flavor with a high innovation content. In a contemporary way Gianfranco Meggiato, replacing the marble with bronze and the human form with bold architectures, agrees with the 200 bc Greek philosopher Plotinus: “do as a sculptor of a statue that has become beautiful. He takes off, scrapes, smooth, cleans, until from the marble a beautiful image appears” allowing ourselves to purify “the bleak” making it “brilliant”.
Consequently, during Arte Padova 2013 fair, the Master tells us how the essence of his art takes shape.
Your sculptures are international: every country “assimilates” your style. Which chemistry to allow this connection among culture, nation and works?
At the base of each culture with diversity and contrasts that can have each other, as for example we can see today, there is a sensitivity substrate that unites them together in a common feeling. When through an abstract language, free from iconographic references linked to a specific culture, you can make and fell an explicit inner energy from my works: you find an important secret. For this reason my sculptures in Dubai are seen as Arab, in Shanghai as Chinese, in Seul as Korean, in New Delhi as Indians. This confirms my thoughts about the true art focus: to cross all the power systems and all cultures to get directly the essence of the human beings.
We are in a materialistic society with a strong use of the body at different levels. What does it mean for you to work material in the XXII century?
Mold and shape the hot wax, feel the honey softness and scent has a magical significance, as alchemical. The real artist task is to be able to transform and sublimate the material by condensing, in a piece of wax and bronze, concepts and emotions which will be reversed in people who will watch and touch such works. Although i’m an abstract sculptor, honestly i think myself classic: i am Italian, Venetian so i remain linked, unconsciously, to the artistic history of my country. I still admire Michelangelo with the Prigioni in a shocking contemporary vision. Therefore in art the basic concept concerns through the sublimation of matter. In summary we are energy.
The Enigma sculpture exhibited in the Principality of Monaco, marks your entry into monumental sculptures. For the future, what will be your act in this area?
The Enigma work is the first of a series of monumental sculptures. It started a project of museum exhibitions with a duration of four years. In this context it will be given much space to these great works that characterize the activity of any sculptor. The exhibitions program is always updated and i invite my art followers to stay tuned on my initiatives.
Creatively you have residence in the Canary Islands. Can you give us the exact location and the reason of this choice?
The choice to move to Gran Canaria, precisely Agaete (beautiful place between ocean and mountains), is born from the need to find artistic inspiration in the tranquility and simplicity of the inhabitants and the beauty of the landscape, without all the Italian in this unfortunate period of history. The important situation for an artist is to feel citizen of the world, not connected to a specific territory, but free to move and travel.
Bronze is the main material. What do you still find in it?
Bronze is one of the few materials that gives me the chance to make complex works. Actually a ball of wood, marble, glass or ceramic is impossible to create. The light that the bronze pulled in mirror provides is unique, warm and functional expression of my theme. For me brightness is spirituality: a situation that i feel inside me.
A taste deriving from the study of the goldsmith tradition.
There are important artists started as goldsmiths and subsequently become sculptors. For me it was a reverse process, because i start as sculptor and after goldsmith keeping the focus to create small sculptures, without distorting the original message. In fact, i give this significant: sculptures to wear in a limited edition. A symbiosis between these situations.
Cellular entities or hypothetical brain sections: this inspiration where comes from?
There are many people who inappropriately make a comparison between my and Pomodoro works, but they are two artistic directions diametrically opposed. Pomodoro focus recalls the machine with its mechanical device through cracks and lacerations made by sharp blades. Instead in my works there is an organic fabric tubes that resemble a brain with bands that refer to nerves and muscles. For this reason the biomorphic fabric brings us to human being and to life: a man’s journey into himself. Metaphorically i reproduce these organic materials to indicate and to understand the most important thing probably in life: to find ourselves.