Massimo Franchi
Born in Rome (Italy) in 1953.
He lives and works in Rome.
Selected Exhibitions
1999 "CORPI", Galleria Consorti, Rome.
2000 Group exhibition at Bertrand Kass, Innsbruck.
"Tracce d’Umanità", solo exhibition at Galleria Consorti, Rome.
"Art on Paper", Kranj- Slovenia.
"Wash and Dry", event exhibition at "Le Bain" Rome.
"Scritture, Figure, Segni" Centro di Sarro, Rome.
2001 Group exhibition at Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
"ALIVE", The White Box, New York.
"Immaginativa", S. Maria della Scala, Siena.
Group exhibition at Church Gallery Orlando, Florida.
Biennale Internazionale di Firenze, Fortezza Da Basso, Florence.
Asolo Golf Club, Cavaso del Tomba, Treviso.
2002 "Il corpo e lo sguardo", Palazzo Ducale di Revere.
Solo exhibition at Krediet Bank di Lugano.
Solo exhibition at Gallery 49 New York.
Solo exhibition at "Nati con la camicia" Lugano.
Group exhibition at Tempio Todaiji di Nara, Giappone.
Group exhibition at Istituto Italiano di Cultura di San Francisco.
Group exhibition at Kunst Center di Silkeborg, Denmark.
2003 International Paper Exhibition – MG Art International –
CVB Space with William Whipple Art Gallery, New York.
"Caffè als Ritual", Kunst und Design-Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Berlin.
Batik Art International, group exhibition at Barcelona.
"Shelters-Rifugi", Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York.
29° Salon de Luxembourg.
"I segni del Corpo", Studio C Piacenza.
The Ritual of Coffee, Istituto Italiano di Cultura based in San Francisco.
"Contemporarte", Galleria Antonio Battaglia, Spazio Consolo, Milan.
2004 "The Holiday Show", Gallery@49, New York.
"HOLLYWOOD PARTY", Galleria Antonio Battaglia, Milan.
"DEJA’ NEW", Galleria Ferrari, Ferrara.
"LA FIGURA NASCOSTA", Galleria Comunale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Piombino, Piombino, LI.
"ARTISTIKA", Dal Figurativo all’Informale, Centro Arte Contemportanea città di Lizzano, Lizzano (TA).
"PERIPHERIES", 7° Premio Internazionale Città di Laives", Deutsche
Kulturhaus of Laives, Laives, Bolzano.
"SWISS in CHEESE", Spazio Sarpisei, Milan.
Museum of Americas of Miami, Group exhibition, Miami.
"ECCE HOMO", Gallery@49, New York.
2005 "Lo Zoo Incantato", Sale del Bramante, Rome.
"EROS+FOOD", International Videoart Festival, Sala Estense, Ferrara.
"URBAN FLESH and BLOOD", International Video Art Screening, Kaliningrad Branch
of the National Centre for contemporary Arts, Kaliningrad, Russia.
"Arte contro la sclerosi", Sala dei Capitani, Ascoli Piceno.
"STREET LIGHTS", solo exhibion at Galleria NEO ART GALLERY, Rome.
"STREET LIGHTS", solo exhibion at Galleria Antonio BATTAGLIA " Milan.
"Bird 2005", Premio Speciale della Giuria, Beijing Natural Culture Center, Beijing, China.
"ESCAPE", L’uomo e i suoi spazi, Chiostro di S. Francesco, Teggiano (SA).
"Urban ConneXions", AURO, Catania.
"Immagine presente", curated by Lucio Barbera, 22 – 25 September, Le Ciminiere, Catania.
"ARTIST 2005", 15^Istanbul Art Fair, 8 – 16 October, Istanbul, Turkey.
"1° Biennale Internazionale d’Arte di Microcredito" Turkey, 21 – 30 November,
Museo della Pittura e Scultura di Stato del Ministero della Cultura e del Turismo di Ankara, Turkey.
International Experimental Film Festival Carbunari 2005, Florean Museum, Carbunari, Romania.
"DADODAUTORE", Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, Università La Sapienza di Roma, Rome.
"ATTITUDE" Videofestival, Cultural center "Magaza" Institute e Museum, Bitola, Macedonia, 24 December.
2006 "STRADE", solo exhibition at Studio d’Arte FEDELE, Monopoli (Bari).
"Le Città nell’Arte Contemporanea", curated by Carlo Franza, Catalogue COMED, Galleria 9 Colonne/SPE Milan.
"60×60+360", Youngmuseum, Centro Internazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Palazzo Ducale di Revere, Mantova.
"Luce e ombra", S.Gregorio al Celio, Rome.
"Vis a vis, corps a corps", Chiostro di S.Francesco, Teggiano (Salerno).
Review
Massimo Franchi’s pyramid is a geometric mystery of perfection, smooth of edges, shining of obscurity, on what all converges and from what all lines, from light to shapes and energies. Like the monolith in Kubrick’s Odyssey, this absorbing block is the unknowable source of knowing and conscience, attraction and push for a step beyond the “status quo”, frontier and passage for a different direction to enter. It is the open and dynamic order which rushes up, radiates down, which offers planes and corners. Perspectives. To Franchi’s humanism this condition of yearned settlement looks not like a way to escape, not safe or easy, for the trouble and the insanities of human being. To get outside the chaos is not a simple jumping out, as anarchist and redemptist action. On the contrary, it is a blinding and audacious choice, another jumping in the dark, it is like to be projected into something we still did not find, and not into something we lost. That’s why we need the maximum of strength and tension, of mind and hearth, of the studied vigour of a classic fighter, of the plastic accomplishment to the symmetric perfection. Everything anyway hinges on aerial measures. And on the harmonies, which stimulate the dialectics between real and ideal words, like white and black, stases and movement, symbol and appearance. Man’s destiny rises and runs on the flow of balance of antitheses and contrasts; on harmony, on the synthesis and the composition of contradictions he measures his hope for the future, his vital impetus, his Civilization.
Francesco Giulio Farachi
