Gianfranco Meggiato Italy, b. 1963

Works

Biography

Gianfranco Meggiato was born on 26 August 1963 in Venice, where he attended the State Institute of Art, studying sculpture in stone, bronze, wood and ceramics. Meggiato’s work looks at the great masters of the XX century: Brancusi for his research into essentiality, Moore for the internal-external relationship with motherhood and Calder for the way his works open into space. Space, in fact, enters Meggiato’s works and the void becomes as important as the solid.

In fact, the essential is invisible to the eyes: you cannot touch ideals, feelings or dreams – you can only live them.

Meggiato models his sculptures inspired by the biomorphic fabric and the labyrinth symbolising mankind’s tortuous path towards self-awareness and the discovery of a precious inner sphere. He consequently invented the concept of “intro-sculpture” in which the observer’s gaze is drawn into the soul of the work and not merely its external surfaces.

An artist of International status since 1998, he takes part in exhibitions and art fairs in Italy and around the world (USA, Canada, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Montecarlo, Ukraine, Russia, India, China, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, South Korea, Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong and Australia).

In 2011 and 2013 he was invited to the join the Italian pavilions at the Venice Biennial.

In 2017, Meggiato turned his attention to scientific and social issues through monumental works implemented in large public installations:

“The Garden of the Silent Muses” (Catanzaro 2017) stood as a symbolic defence of our values and our culture against terrorism.

“The Spiral of Life” (Palermo 2018) during the Manifesta 12 event was dedicated to the innocent victims of the mafia.

“The Garden of Zyz” for Matera European Capital of Culture (2019) sought to be a meeting point between cultures often in contrast with each other in the logic that Everything is One.

“Quantum Man: There is no Future without Memory”(2021) was a large solo exhibition with monumental works set up in the Valley of Temples in Agrigento (Sicily) as an attempt to find a point of contact between archaeology, philosophy and quantum physics.

“The Spiral of Life”(2022). set up for Prato City Council and the Pecci museum was a revival of the installation dedicated to the innocent victims of the mafia.

These installations earned the ICOMOS-UNESCO AWARD “for his masterful combination of the ancient and the contemporary in sculptural installations of imposing evocative power and aesthetic value”

Series