An army of little “ulgly but cool” characters is about to invade Bologna. From Friday 19 to Sunday, November 21, Palazzo Hercolani will host Mariano Franzetti‘s solo exhibition entitled “PUTTY TOYS TRICKY, LORO“. 

The Italian-Argentinean artist Mariano Franzetti has an education developed between Argentina and Italy that goes from architecture to art and arrives to fashion. His artistic production focuses on the analysis of the human being, leading him to give life to small eccentric and “different” characters. 

Representing these small beings through different artistic forms, Mariano Franzetti is ready to present to the public his collection of “ugly but cool” characters declined in sculptures, bas-reliefs, paintings and tapestries. 

Every single creature born from the mind and shaped by the hands of Mariano Franzetti represents our contemporaneity, through poses, hairstyles, personalities, clothing. 

On the occasion of the opening to the public of “PUTTY TOYS TRICKY, LORO” we asked the artist a few questions to learn more about his work. 

How did your journey into the world of art begin? 

I have always drawn, since I was a child, pencil drawings on paper or any support, a refuge perhaps, a form of isolation but also of communication. While studying architecture and in a country in the midst of a crisis, I took up painting again, influenced by the Renaissance and the Italian Baroque.  

What will people see if they decide to visit your exhibition PUTTY TOYS TRICKY, THEY in Bologna? 

A classic analog pop metaverse. 

The characters you create are “ugly but cool”, in what way is this definition related to the world we live in and to our contemporaneity? 

Ugly but cool, or cool but ugly. This limitless dualism that focuses on the confusion between matter and spirit, light and shadow, beauty and ugliness towards the search for an absolute archetype.

From a more technical standpoint, how do you make your sculptures? What materials do you use and where do you get the inspiration for each one? 

They are like poor art toys, sculptures in das with skeletons made from toothpicks and styrofoam. Superficially inspired by fashion, they basically represent them, us, the reality on and off line, the sacred everyday. 

Are the characters you create and the tableaux vivants you compose meant to warn about how society might become in the future or are they a portrait of today’s society? 

Stories that repeat themselves, in the end we are not so different from centuries ago.