“Any work of art, once hung, becomes an awry decoration”

The line between art and design seems to be one of the central topics of Franco Mazzucchelli’s artistic research. Born in 1939, he was invited to the Venice Biennale in 1976 and is internationally known for his inflatable PVC works.

First published in Domus in 1972, there is so much to say about the cycle of works – Bieca Decorazione (Awry Decoration) – the artist has been producing for fifty years, although his first inflatable and documentary works have now become almost cult objects, celebrated by exhibitions all over the world – from Museo del Novecento to Centre Pompidou in Metz. Distinguished by fluorescent colours, glycol, metallic finishes and mirror surfaces, the cheerful palette of Franco Mazzucchelli’s PVC inflatable paintings seems endless. However, behind this shimmering appearance lies an ideological approach to art and a decades-long history of social commitment. It is no coincidence that, after his solo exhibitions at the Gaggenau Hub in Milan and his installation at the MACRO in Rome, Bieca Decorazione cycle of works brings the artist back to the Venice Biennale this year (the Syrian Arab Republic Pavilion). But how did Bieca Decorazione come about and why is it so important?

In the 510 May 1972 issue, Domus describes the artistic installation created by Franco Mazzucchelli for the Neapolitan showroom of Garavaglia (now DADA). Between 1971 and 1972, after a first simple and limited attempt at the Fiera Campionaria in Milan, the artist and the designer Angelo Cortesi (three times winner of the Compasso d’Oro) created a complex installation that took up the entire space. As reported in the article, it is an unprecedented attempt to introduce Franco Mazzucchelli’s research – art is not the work, but the interaction that is created between the public and the artwork – into a “domestic” context.

Since 1964 Franco Mazzucchelli has been producing “artistic actions”, called A. TO A. (art to abandon), during which he abandons large PVC inflatable works he has made in places unrelated to the art world (beaches, parks, squares and even kindergartens). These inflatable “sculptures” were often destroyed by the public’s amused enthusiasm. Rather than standing up, the artist sought this involvement by documenting it through videos and photographs. His aim was to criticise the exaggerated commodification of art and the trend of replicating the artistic artefacts for commercial purposes, as if the artist had to search for recognisable styles and become a brand.

From this approach comes the artist’s desire to display his own art inside places of economy (fairs and showrooms). At the end of 1971, Franco Mazzucchelli realized another installation at the Spazio Anny di Gennaro, in Milan. For the first time, he flattens his inflatable works in order to hung and create a sort of panelling rising from the walls up to the ceiling. It is a revolution within a revolution: Franco Mazzucchelli’s unique inflatable works end up furnishing an entire space in a conceptual way. These first experiments remained so until the end of the 1990s, when the artist created a real cycle of inflatable PVC paintings called BD – Bieca Decorazione. 

In 2020, Franco Mazzucchelli himself tells us about this slow and painful genesis on SmallZine: “In the 1980s, I experienced a decade of almost total creative silence. Looking around, I realised that the highly criticised commodification of art had remained the rule and, above all, the legitimate interest, pleasure and desire of every artist to sell his or her works was being masked by a complex and equally uncertain ideological apparatus. The truth is that all artists, sooner or later, make awry decoration. [...] Any work of art, even those with the highest ideological content, once hung, becomes decoration and takes on a completely different meaning from the original artistic intention.”

Moreover, at the end of the 1990s, the artist increasingly felt the lack of making art, considering the repetition of the Actions of the beginning to be anachronistic. He goes so far as to state that: “the soul of the painter remained with me and thanks to Bieca Decorazione I also freed myself from the burden of myself. After the age of 50, I have gained back the colours and compositional harmony with the BD.” The Bieca Decorazione is thus an irresistible mix of pop and conceptual art, in which the almost visceral need to make art blends with self-irony and the persistence of a strong ideological approach. After all, social commitment does not preclude the ability to enjoy the beauty of life. In the most recent works, as in the showrooms of the early 1970s, even the strongest work of criticism of capitalism, once hung, becomes a piece of furniture without any utility, a pure pleasure for the eyes, in short, an awry decoration. 

Opening image: Franco Mazzucchelli, “ATOA” (art to abandon),  Garavaglia furniture shop, Naples, 1971-72. Courtesy Archivio Franco Mazzucchelli