From 22 May to 23 August 2026, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi presents Canto infinito, a solo exhibition by Jean-Marie Appriou, hosted in the Project Space of Palazzo Strozzi, the venue dedicated to the site-specific projects by artists from the younger generations. Curated by Arturo Galansino, the exhibition brings together a group of new works specifically conceived for Palazzo Strozzi, offering 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 (France, 1986) 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. Rather than referring to a single narrative, the title opens onto a field of resonances, where sculpture unfolds as an ongoing act of creation. Conceived as an initiatory journey articulated through a sequence of passages, 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. As in Dante’s poem, Canto infinito suggests a movement through different realms and states of being, where transformation, threshold, and metamorphosis become structuring principles. Appriou’s work also engages with a broad 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.

Offering an an immersive experience, Canto infinito unfolds as a sequence of encounters rather than a linear narrative. Sculpture becomes a space where material retains the trace of its making and meaning remains in motion. Without imposing a single interpretative key, the exhibition invites visitors to move through a world in which oppositions—body and spirit, past and future, visible and invisible—are held in dynamic tension, offering an experience that is both sensorial and contemplative.

“With Canto infinito, Jean-Marie Appriou transforms the Project Space at Palazzo Strozzi into a realm of imagination and reflection, where materials, myths, and visions intertwine in an open dialogue with the present,” says Arturo Galansino, Director General of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. “We are especially pleased to present in Florence the work of one of the most original voices in contemporary international art—an artist capable of bringing together archetypal references with an extraordinary formal sensibility. This project reaffirms Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi’s commitment to supporting contemporary artistic research through the production of collaborations that foster new perspectives for dialogue between artists, audiences, and the exhibition space.”