The Italian artist, now seventy, was in his early twenties when he created the earliest painted-wood works in the show: a dull-pink “X,” the Greek letter pi in dark blue, two apricot vertical bars. While those pithy sculptures have affinities with American minimalism of the same era (the mid-sixties), Piacentino was more interested in innovations in mechanical production than in phenomenology. A fantastic recent sculpture takes the form of a simplified speed racer, two gleaming wheels of nickel-plated steel joined to a triangular body. It sports his initials, “GP,” a signature as proud and unabashed as Picasso’s—or Alfa Romeo’s. Through Oct. 31 (Werner, 4 E. 77th St. 212-988-1623.)
