Long before ‘relational aesthetics’ came into fashion, Franco Mazzucchelli (b. Milan, 1939) was using his large PVC installations, left with no prior warning in public spaces across Milan, to activate audience participation. The exhibition ‘Non ti abbandonerò mai’ (I will never abandon you), curated by Sabino Maria Frassà and Iolanda Ratti, reconstructs the main cycles of actions (Abbandoni [abandonments], Sostituzioni [substitutions] and Riappropriazioni [re-appropriations]) carried out by Mazzucchelli from 1964 to 1979 under the sign of A.TO A., art to abandon, readable also as à toi (to you/for you) in French. With it, Museo del Novecento adds another chapter to its thread of small, but consistent research-based exhibitions, aiming at reintegrating figures at the margins of the mainstream into Italian art history.
- Barbara Casavecchia