From Saturday, March 14th to Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, GAMeC CentroArteModerna will present the exhibition curated by Massimiliano Sbrana: "Pisa Ritrovata – Visions of Franco Banti and Mario Meucci", an exhibition that fits into the special atmosphere of the upcoming Capodanno Pisano, when the city celebrates its new year and symbolically renews its connection to its history. In this context of rebirth, the exhibition offers a journey through two different yet complementary perspectives, capable of restoring Pisa to its most intimate, recognizable, and surprising dimension, inviting the public to rediscover it through the sensitivity of two interpreters deeply connected to the region.
Franco Banti, born in Pisa in 1945 and graduated from the Art Institute “Passaglia” in Lucca, brings with him a long experience of studying and passionate observation of the city. His painting is born from a profound relationship with places: each work is an act of care, a way to re-actualize familiar glimpses and return them to the public with a new light. In its lungarni, in the squares, in the architecture that defines urban identity, Banti does not seek simple representation, but a sort of revelation. Pisa thus becomes a place to be rediscovered, a landscape that is renewed through the artist's sensitivity and invites the viewer to a silent yet intense dialogue. His views, such as that of the sunset Lungarno featured in the exhibition material, show a city suspended between memory and the present, where light settles on surfaces with a delicacy that transforms the ordinary into a moment of contemplation.
Alongside him, Mario Meucci offers a vision equally rooted in the territory, but filtered by a different poetics, made of fluidity, delicacy and suspended atmospheres. Its precious hues, applied with a soft and controlled gesture, construct landscapes and city views that seem to emerge from the collective memory. The perspectives, always measured and harmonious, convey a Pisa that vibrates with quiet and sweetness, a city that allows itself to be crossed by light and time without losing its identity. Meucci thus fits into the tradition of a beloved and timeless school of painting, reinterpreting it with a contemporary sensibility. His scenes immersed in the colors of autumn, such as the tree-lined avenue that appears in the exhibition's communication, evoke a slowly breathing territory, where nature becomes the guardian of emotions and memories.
Pisa Ritrovata was born from the encounter of these two visions: one more architectural and luminous, the other more atmospheric and meditative. Together, the works of Banti and Meucci compose a story that traverses the city and its territory, restoring its complexity, beauty, and ability to renew itself without betraying itself. The exhibition thus becomes a tribute to the Pisa we know and the one we often forget to look at, an invitation to rediscover the city within us precisely at the moment when it celebrates its new year. At a time when Pisa is illuminated by tradition and the future, the exhibition offers the public a precious opportunity to reconnect with their visual and emotional identity, through two artists who have transformed the city into a place of the soul.
Free entry.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10am-12.30pm and 4pm-6.30pm
Special opening: Sunday, March 15, 2026, 4pm-6:30pm
Inauguration: Saturday, March 14, 5pm
