Pietro Consagra (1920-2005)

Colloquio impossibile (Impossible Conversation)

Details

Pietro Consagra (1920-2005)
Colloquio impossibile (Impossible Conversation)
incised with the artist's signature and date 'Consagra 59-60' (lower right)
bronze
64 5/8 x 64 3/8 x 3 7/8in. (164 x 163.5 x 10cm.)
Executed in 1959-60, this work is unique

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owner in the 1960s and thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature

N. Ponente, "Pietro Consagra", in Cimaise, no. 50, Paris October-November 1960 (another from the smaller version illustrated, p. 102, incorrectly titled Colloquio a New York).
G. McCue, "Verve and Elegance at Italian Show", in Music and Arts, New York 16 April 1961 (illustrated, unpaged).
G. Carandente, "Consagra '71", in Sicilia, Palermo December, 1973, no. 73 (illustrated, p. 24).

Exhibited

Dallas, Museum of Contemporary Art, Italian Sculptors of Today, 1960-1961, no. 1 (illustrated, unpaged). This exhibition later travelled to New Orleans, Museum Isaac Delgado and St. Louis, Gallery of Modern Art at Washington University and Minneapolis, Walker Art Center.
Palermo, Palazzo dei Normanni, Mostra di Pietro Consagra. Sculture, 1973, no. 29 (illustrated, p. 78).

Sale Room Notice

Please note this work should be starred in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

"...I saw frontality as a way of reshaping the pretensions with which sculpture had come to be burdened: religious and social pretensions, from the established order, or of an order still to come. I wanted a way of relieving sculpture of its status as symbolic presence, and of giving it a more direct, frontal relation, with you, for you - with the viewer..."

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