Andrea Branzi | September 2023

From September 30th, the gallery shows two collections designed by Andrea Branzi between 2020 and 2022 for Simone Begani and Short Stories: Legni domestici and Marmi caldi. They are three vases for a single flower and three totems. All objects were created in a maximum of ten copies plus three artist’s proofs. The vases are in white Carrara marble. They are minimalist sculptures where the rigor and coldness of the stone are contaminated and cracked by a small hole from which a branch or a flower can emerge, as if earth were contained within the marble. The totems are of various sizes and can be used in various ways. The smallest is entirely in bronze. The medium one is just over one meter high and has a birch trunk with bronze grafts, like branches, or leaves, which can be used as shelves. A large version reaches two meters. Together, they determine that hybrid condition, made up of natural and artificial, wild and domestic, primitive and civilized, which Andrea Branzi explored in the mid-eighties with Domestic Animals, and in relation to which they are the continuation of the narrative. 
The two collections are the subject of the book Legni domestici / Marmi caldi (Rose Editions 2023) which portrays them at Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate in Florence: in its historical archive, in the gallery of sculptures, next to the Madonna with Child by Pontormo located in the chapel on the piano nobile, and in the rooms now used by the Breyer Center for Overseas Studies, Stanford University. Alongside the photos by Dario Borruto, the book includes an introduction by Lapo Binazzi, drawings and writings by Andrea Branzi, texts by Niccolò Capponi and Carlo Falciani.