The Ferragamo-owned hospitality chain Lungarno Collection celebrates art once more with a new exhibition by Brescia-born artist Gabriele Picco in the public spaces of the Gallery Hotel Art (vicolo dell’Oro 5) through October 24, 2025.
Gabriele Picco explores the paradoxical relationships between universal themes such as life and death, dreams and reality, focusing on the contradictions of humanity and contemporary society. One of the most recurring subjects in his works is clouds, an iconographic theme deeply rooted in art history, from Giotto’s 14th-century depictions, where clouds take on symbolic and narrative significance, to the dreamlike and surreal visions of René Magritte in the 20th century. Picco reinvents clouds by emphasizing their inherent contradiction and ambiguity—entities suspended between the tangible and the ephemeral, the real and the imaginary—evoking the artistic vision of Pasolini, as seen in the 1967 short film Che cosa sono le nuvole?, a frequent reference in his work. Clouds, understood as allegories of life, take on a poetic and surreal dimension, which the artist translates into sketches, drawings, sculptures, and writing. They appear as mystical, impalpable, and evanescent forms, with unusual and elusive shapes, evoking an infinite universe of possibilities.
On one hand, we see them associated with the historic Fiat 500, a timeless icon. The people’s car—accessible to all, embodying an era and a lifestyle—transforms into a giant sculpture. A cream-colored 1964 Fiat 500 D model carries on its roof rack, instead of suitcases, an impossibly large cloud. The work Nuvola evokes a nostalgic Italy, hopeful and full of collective dreams. Nuvola, in its various versions, has traveled the world, making stops in iconic squares and locations, spreading the charm of Italy’s economic boom era.
In his new series, Cieli Bucati (Pierced Skies), clouds stand out against horizons shifting from shades of pink, blue and purple at dawn to the fiery reds of sunset, vibrating under the passage of light like in Monet’s en plein air paintings. The punctured and perforated canvas transcends the limits of pictorial space, opening up to new dimensions. A small bird perches on the frame (vintage and repurposed by the artist), creating a bridge between past and present. The Pierced Skies series recalls the constellations of Lucio Fontana’s “holes,” openings into an expanded space in search of a third dimension, as well as Gabriele Picco’s Cosa ti cade dagli occhi (2010), in which a seagull discovers the Achilles’ heel of the sky: a fragile point that, if pecked, could shatter, revealing a tiny glimpse of the wonder of the unknown.
According to Picco, clouds do not simply float; they must also be tamed. Hence emerges the figure of the “cloud tamer,” a curious character in the “theater of life” we experience every day. Like a conductor with a top hat, he directs a symphony of dreams amid the clouds to compose an ethereal harmony. In Paint Your Life, within the same surreal dimension, a whimsical little man appears, seemingly emerging from an absurdist theater: his deformed head becomes a palette, the very one used to colour one’s own existence. Perhaps an invitation to paint life following one’s aspirations, imprinting dreams and infinite possibilities.
Less recent works, such as Rainbow Transporters and The Carrot Climber (2017), are being exhibited for the first time. Here, we encounter an imagery where an intangible beauty—such as that of rainbows—becomes earthly: two tiny men choose where to place the bridge of colour. Is it an antidote to boredom? Or perhaps a desire to look at the world with wonder while climbing a giant carrot?
The exhibition, enriched by a series of ironic drawings inspired by the popular culture of cartoons and created especially for the occasion, transforms into a space for reflection on the concept of eternity, exploring dimensions beyond our reach that become metaphors for the experiences of every individual.
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