The Art of Andrea Roggi

There is so much to love about Lucca, Italy - from the Renaissance walls that encircle like a giant hug, to the Medieval streets and buildings, to the music that so often fills its churches, theaters, and squares. It is, like much of Italy, colorful, warm, inviting, and sensuous. Lucca is also a city filled with art. Not museums full of art, but rather a constantly changing outdoor art gallery. Various exhibitions come, filling piazzas or appearing along the walls, and then after a few months they disappear only to be replaced some time later with a new and different art installation. The displays are beautiful and thought-provoking and, best of all, are accessible to everyone. Locals and tourists alike stop to examine the works, to discuss, to photograph, to admire, or sometimes to shake their heads in a sort of “imagine that” gesture. Children not only gaze at these fantastic pieces, but often they can reach out and touch them. It really is art that lives alongside the city and its people.

A Roggi sculpture streetside in Pietrasanta. I love the movement and joy in this piece.

A smaller tree of lIfe theme brass sculpture in the Roggi Gallery in Pietrasanta

This summer a new exhibit graced Lucca, this time by the artist Andrea Roggi, who was born in Tuscany and continues to live, work, and teach in this area.

I first experienced his work in Pietrasanta, where I found his outdoor sculpture of a family at play enchanting. A stop at his gallery in Pietrasanta provided a chance to see more of his work - in bronze and marble - and to learn that an exhibit of his art was just being installed in Lucca.

The Roggi exhibit in Lucca, titled “Terra Mater Earth and Heaven,” included large brass sculptures, many with a recurring “tree of life” theme. The largest of these tree-like sculptures was placed in the Piazza Anfiteatro. Other sculptures were placed on the Renaissance walls, where they were enjoyed by the many people who walk along the walls every day.

This Roggi sculpture, here against Lucca’s blue sky, is one of my favorites.

The Roggi exhibit comes down … what will come next?

As fall arrived the Roggi exhibit came down to make way for the next event, the huge annual Lucca Comics and Games that took place in late October and early November.

But I will anxiously await the appearance of a new art exhibit sometime next spring or summer.

-post by Joanne

For more information on the art of Andrea Roggi and his galleries in Pietrasanta, Cortona, and San Gimignano go to : www.andrearoggi.it