Tickets

Jean-Marie Appriou
CANTO INFINITO

from 22 May 2026
to 23 August 2026

  • Project Space
  • Tutti i giorni 10.00-20.00
    Giovedì fino alle 23.00
  • Ingresso gratuito

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi presents CANTO INFINITO, a solo exhibition by Jean-Marie Appriou for the Project Space of Palazzo Strozzi. Curated by Arturo Galansino, the project brings together a group of new works offering an insight into Appriou’s artistic practice, a distinctive voice of his generation in the redefinition of the idea of scultpure in contemporary art.

The work by Jean-Marie Appriou is characterized by an experimental engagement with materials such as aluminum, bronze, glass, clay, and wax. Through a highly tactile approach, he shapes figures that inhabit an ambiguous territory between the human, the animal, and the vegetal. Appriou’s sculptures draw on references ranging from archaic mythologies to science fiction and contemporary culture. Horses, serpents, marine creatures, and hybrid beings populate a symbolic universe in which forms appear suspended between earth and water, darkness and light, permanence and change. Often monumental in scale, these figures nevertheless establish an intimate relationship with the viewer, conveying a sense of proximity that heightens their enigmatic and sometimes unsettling presence.

The title of the exhibition CANTO INFINITO (“infinite song”) evokes the idea of a continuous flow without beginning or end, suggesting a dimension in which time, matter, and imagination remain in constant transformation. Conceived as an initiatory journey articulated through the rooms of the Project Space, the exhibition subtly draws on the legacy of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri—not as an illustrative model, but as a cultural and symbolic horizon. Appriou’s practice also engages with a broader constellation of literary and mythological sources, which emerge not as fixed references but as presences embodied in sculptural matter and integrated into a spatial sequence. His figures do not illustrate stories but suggest moments of passage and transition.

Jean-Marie Appriou

Brest, 1986

Jean-Marie Appriou was born in 1986 in Brest, France. He lives and works in Paris. He graduated from École régionale des beaux-arts de Rennes in 2010. His solo shows include TANK Museum, Shanghai, PRC (2025); La cinquième essence, MO.CO. – La Panacée, Montpellier, FR (2025); Whale Song, Now + There, Boston, Boston U.S. (2024); Jean-Marie Appriou and Exonaut Horizon, Perrotin, Paris, FR (2024); La Constellation du Louvre, Musée du Louvre, Paris, FR (2023); The Traveler, Langhe, Neviglie, IT (2023); Gemini, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Vienna, AUS (2023); MASSIMODECARLO, Hong Kong (2023); MASSIMODECARLO, London, UK; Villa Medici, Rome, I (2022); The Horses, organized by Public Art Fund, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, New York, NY, US (2019–2020); Seabed, Le Consortium, Dijon, FR (2019–2020); and Open Space #1, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, FR (2018). Appriou participated in Là où les eaux se mêlent, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, FR (2019) with a major installation titled Roncier. His institutional group exhibitions include Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale, ARTZUID, Amsterdam, NL (2025); The Air is Subtle Yeti t Moves, AMA House, Athens, GRS (2025); Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley, Alison Jacques Gallery, London, UK (2025); I Sought My Soul, St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin, DE (2025); A Drawing A Day, MASSIMODECARLO Seoul Studio, Seoul ROK (2024); Van Gogh and The Stars, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Arles, FR (2024); Eccentric. The Aesthetics of Freedom, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, DE (2024); White sea olive groves, Malta Biennial, Valletta, MLTA (2024); CAB OPENING PUBLIC PROGRAMS, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago (2023); Jing’an Sculpture Park, Shanghai, Shanghai (2023); Childhood, Centre Pompidou, Metz (2022); Another banana for the dream-fish, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR (2018); Neuer Norden Zürich, KiöR Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, Zurich, CH (2018); Deux sens du décoratif, Centre d’art Contemporain, Brest, FR (2018); Voyage d’Hiver, Château de Versailles, Versailles, FR (2017); Robots. Work. Our Future, Vienna Biennale, Vienna, AT (2017); MEDUSA, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, FR (2017); L’Usage des Formes, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR (2015); and La solitude, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, NO (2014).

Jean-Marie Appriou. CANTO INFINITO is promoted and organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.

Pubblic supporters: Comune di Firenze, Regione Toscana, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Camera di Commercio di Firenze.

Private supporters: Fondazione CR Firenze, Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondazione Hillary Merkus Recordati, Comitato dei Partner di Palazzo Strozzi.

Cover: Jean-Marie Appriou © Photo: Claire Dorn