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Lot Essay
Melotti's incredible inventiveness and freshness finds strong confirmation in this work that seems to live off a mysterious intrinsic vitality. The Bisarca is a sort of long cart, constructed on various levels, in which the movement and variety of the elements included make up one of our favourite works by this great artist who never ceases to surprise. The wheels, the tracks, the undulating meshes that modulate the composition as though in movement, the stylised men in the upper "cabin" and on the track in the middle, sometimes contorted in the effort to attract the onlookers' attention and favour. Lastly, the most astonishing detail: strips of painted fabric attached to the rear of the carrier, in the guise of a tail made of brushstrokes of colour. The men are "prostitutes" who display themselves and what they express: the title does not provide them with a specific connotation, but I have always thought
that there is a political allusion underlying this work. Politicians who display themselves in public and hand out promises to win consensus. A "feminist" view of the artist, who was certainly close in his heart to women (a wife and two daughters that he adored). Politics is, prevalently, a male prerogative; perhaps Melotti did not agree with what most of us do not accept: his (that is to say "their") making promises first that will not be kept later. But, leaving aside this personal interpretation, which may just be a guess, the elegant and supple beauty of the sculpture with its painted rags remains, with its notion of the journey that once again surfaces in the form of the cart which, who knows, might carry these shameful politicians far away from our shores.
The sculpture is extremely mobile: a small breath of air is sufficient to move its components. And so it sets off on its journey, in our minds. Destination unknown. Although now it is sitting on a glass table that enhances its linearity, although we often check that it is still there, in our house, that no one harms it, and that it continues to enrich our daily panorama with its presence.
that there is a political allusion underlying this work. Politicians who display themselves in public and hand out promises to win consensus. A "feminist" view of the artist, who was certainly close in his heart to women (a wife and two daughters that he adored). Politics is, prevalently, a male prerogative; perhaps Melotti did not agree with what most of us do not accept: his (that is to say "their") making promises first that will not be kept later. But, leaving aside this personal interpretation, which may just be a guess, the elegant and supple beauty of the sculpture with its painted rags remains, with its notion of the journey that once again surfaces in the form of the cart which, who knows, might carry these shameful politicians far away from our shores.
The sculpture is extremely mobile: a small breath of air is sufficient to move its components. And so it sets off on its journey, in our minds. Destination unknown. Although now it is sitting on a glass table that enhances its linearity, although we often check that it is still there, in our house, that no one harms it, and that it continues to enrich our daily panorama with its presence.