Abbandoni (abandoned)
At the end of the Sixties he felt the need to meet the challenges of a more realistic context than that of the narrow world of art galleries and he experimented with a new form of public art. After a few failed experiments (his first inflatable sculptures in 1964 only lasted twenty minutes before they deflated] he produced the Abbandoni (abandoned), inflatable structures in PVC left in public places and designed to interact with the public as an opening up and liberation of the System of art.
Marina Pugliese
A. to A.

Art to Abandon, a toi: at the end of 1970, Mazzucchelli decided to map and record his abbandoni numbering them an documenting all the details including the cost. Although these inflatables, which had by then been branded with the initials A. TO A., were abandoned and accompanied by detailed documentation of their relations with the public; the voices of those present, recorded and transcribed, ended up in a self produced publication.
When in 1972 Mazzucchelli abandoned some PVC inflatables (A. TO A.) in front of Alfa Romeo he involuntarily triggered a road block by some factory workers who used the plastic shapes to create a barrier to block the cars.
At the time this was considered working in the social sphere so that art could come out of the temples of knowledge to produce and discover new dimensions, new languages.
Marina Pugliese

Sostituzioni (Substitution)

Mazzucchelli started intervene in environments by using polyethylene to create semi transparent membrane through which space was modified and perceived in a new way.
The artificial nature of the work in Sostituzione (substitution) in 1973, with its enormous bubbles of very thin plastic, completely transformed the normal use of space inside the Milan Triennial obliging people to reinvent the space and how to occupy it.
Marina Pugliese

Riappropriazioni (Re-appropriations)

The Riappropriazioni (re-appropriations) of the middle of the Seventies, reproduce the problem of the Sostituzione but outdoors: the membranes of plastic film encourage the rediscovery of public places so that they are experienced from completely new viewpoints.
Marina Pugliese

Interventi ambientali (Interventions)

Since the Eighties Mazzucchelli has centred his feeling for social issues in his teaching given that the grounds on which and for which a series of experiences had origìnated had exhausted themselves. He didn't stop producing his inflatables but involved his pupils in the action as an occasion for a reciprocal exchange of experiences and ideas. Mazzucchelli made himself the promoter of a renewal of the con-tents and teachings at the historical Accademia di Brera, the first and only academy in Italy able to boast a course in sculpture with a strong emphasis on the use of artificial materials.
He started with the need to work at a social level and carne recently, through a series of experiences in which the common theme was "collectivisation" and by abandoning normal exhibitions to leave his mark on unusual environments or outdoor sites, to reflect on the concept of the monumental. The art of this century has radically changed the meaning of the monumental, underlining the estrangement of contemporary human beings from past forms of communication.
In contemporary culture the monumental has gene-rally lost the evocative charge that it had in the past. It no longer interacts with people and has become just another part of the urban décor. Franco Mazzucchelli has superimposed his work on some monuments disrupting both the distracted perception of passers by and the original meaning of the work: for the short duration of Mazzucchelli's intervention, the Napoleone of Canova in the Brera court-yard floated ethereally and weightless on a cloud of polyethylene through which people could walk.
Marina Pugliese

Personale-personale (Personal-personal)

In 2002 Mazzucchelli arrived at the anti-thesis of his starting point. As a logical consequence of accepting a change in the times without remedy and also driven by a desire to move ahead with his artistic research, he started to organise "personal" exhibitions. By combining his love for the sea and the strength of the wind with the versatility of plastic, he used a sailing boat to gel away from every-thing and temporarily abandon inflatables on the water. In other words where no one except him could see the works, he makes an ironic comment on the narcissism of artists and attributes the double quality of artist and public to "personal".
Marina Pugliese