Gianfranco Meggiato
<p>Born in Venice, a culturally rich city where the land meets the sea, Gianfranco Meggiato’s sculptures reflect the remarkable sensorial qualities and romanticism of his native homeland. At the young age of 16, Meggiato was invited by the Municipality of Venice to exhibit his works at the Galleria Comunale Bevilacqua La Masa in St. Mark’s Square, which was followed by another exhibition when he was just 21 years old. He would then go on to study bronze, stone, wood and ceramic sculpture at the Istituto Statale d’Arte.</p>
<p>Adopting the ‘lost wax’ casting process, wherein molten metal is poured into a wax mould, Meggiato creates sculptures composed of organic forms and abstract lattices. Interested in the notion of the void, Meggiato labels his works as an ‘introsculpture’, a term the artist coined which describes the act of the viewer being drawn towards the centre, the very core, of the sculpture.</p>
<p>Meggiato has exhibited extensively in group and solo exhibitions globally from across Europe, to North America, Canada, the UK, Australia, Russia, the UAE, and various countries across Asia. In 2011 and 2013, Meggiato was invited to exhibit his sculptures in the 54th and 55th Venice Biennale, respectively.</p>
<p>In 2014 the Lu.C.C.A. Center of Contemporary Art held a solo exhibition and invited him to participate in the collective “The restless twentieth century Vedova, Vasarely, Christo, Cattelan, Hirst and the Genesis of Third Millenium ”.<br />In December 2016 he exhibited a monumental sculpture Sirio Sphere (2 meters of diameter) in the Bayfront Park in Miami.<br />In February 2017 a retrospective with more than 50 artworks was inaugurated at the Nuova Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice; in the same year, in June, the MARCA museum of Catanzaro presented a great exhibition about his work, in four of the most important locations in the city: MARCA, Scolacium, MUSMI and MARCA Open with the “Garden of the Silent Muses”: an installation with a diameter of 20 meters hosting 8 monumental sculptures in a labyrinth composed of 4000 juta sandbags. “My Free Thought”, 3,00 mt. High, was the most majestic piece: he was located permanently in the International Sculpture Park, near a Tony Cragg’s sculpture.<br />In August 2017 he made the scenography for the Opera “CARMEN” for the Scolacium Archaeological Park.<br />In the same month Meggiato was selected to exhibit for the 20th anniversary of OPEN 20 International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, in Venice in conjunction with the Venice Film Festival. In October 2017 Gianfranco Meggiato received the prestigious ICOMOS-UNESCO award for having masterly combined the ancient and contemporary style in sculptural installations of strong evocative power and aesthetic value. More over, in the same month, in Pistoia – Italian Capital of Culture 2017-, he has invited to exhibit in the cathedral square with its installation “My Free Thought -The Silent Muses”.</p>
