Twelve years later, Tuscan sculptor Michele Chiossi (Lucca, 1970) returns to exhibit at theHotel Byron in Forte dei Marmi where, until July 31, 2025, the exhibition MC Zigzag. The Forte Suite, curated by Fabrizio Meris, which began last June 26. Spread throughout the hotel’s ground-floor rooms (which can be visited during opening hours), the exhibition displays a series of Chiossi’s recent drawings, all executed in 2025, and two polychrome marble sculptures.
The drawings (a “suite,” the term for a group of drawings created in series, although in the case of this recent production by Chiossi, they are all works executed for different clients, or by the artist according to the inspiration of the moment) are mostly portraits of collectors and were made with some unconventional means: colored markers, inks and highlighters on A3-sized tracing paper. There is no shortage of tributes to Forte dei Marmi life (such as the portrait of Mina, a one-time habituée of Versilia, or the portrait of Admiral Enrico Morin, longtime minister of the Navy inCrispina Italy, for a few years foreign minister in the Zanardelli government, and retired to private life in Forte dei Marmi at the end of his career), nor portraits of animals, such as that of Charlie, a poodle owned by a Chiossi collector, one of the most unique and complex drawings in the series. Then there is The Agave on the Rock, a work celebrating Eugenio Montale’s poem of the same name from the collection Ossi di seppia, a self-portrait of the poet that Chiossi almost seems to want to make his own.
Michele Chiossi is an artist who primarily uses sculpture to express his ideas, but drawing has always been present in his art and for MC Zigzag. The Forte Suite he has returned to practicing it with some regularity. His work is a thoughtful and educated reflection on modern society, which is increasingly frenetic, technological and distant from the natural rhythms of life. One of the distinctive elements of his works, also recurring in the drawings in the Hotel Byron exhibition, is the zigzag mark, which appears almost everywhere: in drawings, sculptures, portraits, still lifes. This stroke, reminiscent of the pixels in the images we see on screens, represents the instability of contemporary man, who feels broken, confused, overwhelmed by a world that runs too fast, full of deadlines and artificial stimuli.
Although Chiossi’s manner may remind one of Pop Art because of its express desire to take cues from pop culture, its myths, or common objects, Chiossi does not simply “reproduce” things, but transforms them, gives them a new meaning to speak of our age: a globalized reality, dominated by the market, speed and technology, which often disorients and fragments human beings. Chiossi’s broken, irregular and jerky line conveys a sense of tension, instability and movement. It can be interpreted as a visual representation of our confusion, of the frenzy of current time, always accelerated and disconnected from natural cycles, of the interruptions and logical leaps that characterize today’s digital and fragmented life. In his work, this zigzag thus becomes a visual metaphor that pervades even the most familiar situations.
Also on display are two sculptures, O.K. Club from 2021 and Together Forever from 2022 and representing two seemingly carefree moments of Snoopy and his inseparable friend Woodstock, Peanuts characters often recurring in his art because, behind their attitude that may seem joyful and carefree, there always recurs a vein that is, on the contrary, melancholy, pensive, which is divided between two poles, between Snoopy’s dreamy mentality and Woodstock’s more realistic approach, which in Chiossi, given also the rendering with the zigzag stroke, become almost archetypes of contemporary human beings.
Michele Chiossi, born in Lucca in 1970, is one of the most appreciated Italian sculptors of his generation. After a long stay in New York (1993-2006), he moved to Milan, where he lived and worked for several years before his recent move to Versilia. His exhibition career began in 1995 and led him to exhibit in numerous countries between Europe and the United States. In 2011 he was selected for the Tuscany Pavilion, a detached section of the Italian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.
His artistic research focuses on the interpretation of contemporary life and its symbols, mixing references to modern communication - such as emoticons and brands - with a renewed sculptural language. He uses both classical (such as marble) and technological materials (neon, resins, steel), often in combination. His distinctive style includes the use of zigzag strokes and the reinterpretation of iconic subjects in a contemporary key.
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| Forte dei Marmi, Michele Chiossi returns to Hotel Byron with MC Zigzag, the Forte Suite |
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