September 25-November 8, 2025
Opening: Tuesday September 25, from 18
Giuseppe Veneziano
Piazze d’Italia
curated by Ivan Quaroni
Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea is delighted to present Piazze d’Italia, the first solo show with works by Giuseppe Veneziano in the gallery, curated by Ivan Quaroni, that opens on September 18th. The show will be held in the Magic Bus project room, a space devoted to experimentation and emerging languages. This exhibitions marks a new chapter in the Sicilian artist’s research, always attentive to the intersection of pop language, contemporary visual culture and art history.
The title explicitly references Giorgio De Chirico’s iconic series of metaphysical paintings, while also offering a moment of encounter between the language of classicism and contemporary imagery. In this new body of work, Veneziano revisits the compositional structures of De Chirico’s timeless piazzas – populated with porticoes, shadows, and architectures suspended in time – but replaces the traditional classical statues with recognizable works by renowned living contemporary artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mimmo Paladino.
Though these double d’apres, Veneziano reflects upon the transformed notion of fame in the era of mass media and hyper-visibility. If once monuments used to celebrate heroes of the past or memorable deeds, nowadays visibility often equates to fleeting notoriety. Hence, in Piazza Maurizio Cattelan, stands the artist’s infamous middle finger sculpture, installed in 2010 in front of the Milan Stock Exchange, while Piazza Michelangelo Pistoletto hosts a monumental Venere degli Stracci, that symbolizes the vulnerability of public art. A touch of irony and self-awareness is also present in Piazza Giuseppe Veneziano, where the artist places his own huge blue banana, subject of heated media debate.
Conceived as a post-modern atlas, Piazze d’Italia oscillates between citation and reinvention, between De Chirico’s existential enigma and the diabolical phenomenology of contemporary art. For Veneziano, the piazza becomes a stage for critical vision – a narrative device where art history merges with contemporary reality, memory meets the present and aesthetics intertwines with communication.
Giuseppe Veneziano (Mazzarino, 1971) lives and works between Milan and Pietrasanta. Trained as an architect, he later dedicated himself entirely to art, becoming one of the leading figures of the Italian Newbrow movement. His painting merges pop culture, art history and current events, often through iconographic mash-ups. He took part in the 54ª Venice Biennale (Padiglione Italia, 2011), in the Prague Biennale (2009), in the St. Petersburg Biennale (2007), and his work was part of the show “Artâthlos” on the occasion of Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. His artwork has been exhibited in major public venues such as Palazzo Reale and Triennale in Milan, Museo RISO in Palermo, MACS in Catania, PAN in Naples and Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto. Known for his visual impact and communicative streinght, his work reflects on the myths and themes of contemporary society with irony and sharp critical insight.
