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Lot Essay
Hanging from a tall metal structure, three spherical balls hang from delicate chains as they silently float just above the ground in Fausto Melotti’s Scultura A (I pendoli). With a monumental elegance, Scultura A (I pendoli) encapsulates the central conception of Melotti’s sculpture: a lyrical embodiment of graceful, silent movement the work also affirms the artist’s belief in art as a rigorous exercise of order, geometry and rational equilibrium. Conceived in 1968, Scultura A (I pendoli) is one of a series of abstract sculptures named as consecutive letters in the alphabet that Melotti began in 1967, in the latter phase of his career, as he was rising to prominence as one of Italy’s foremost sculptors and a key figure within the contemporary art world. Having been an exponent of abstract sculpture in Milan in the 1930s, after the devastation and trauma of the Second World War, Melotti turned away from geometry and proportion and began to create more whimsical works filled with poetry, symbolism and on occasions, narrative. By the 1960s, Melotti had begun to merge these two contrasting aesthetics to create a series of ordered yet dynamic and lyrical metal sculptures such as the present work.
Throughout his career, Melotti had explored the materiality of sculpture, experimenting with the visual oppositions of movement and stasis, weight and lightness, rigidity and flexibility. Scultura A (I pendoli) encapsulates these dialectical states: the solid, static metal structure of the pendulum contrasts with the fine metal strands that hold the seemingly weightless spheres which appear to defy gravity by oscillating in a graceful, elliptical motion. Incorporating and integrating the negative space surrounding it, Scultura A (I pendoli) embodies a sense of perfect equilibrium, transforming the heavy, durability of metal into an ephemeral vision of lightness and movement. In 1963, five years before he conceived of the present work, Melotti wrote, ‘Confused, thirsting for quiet, we distance ourselves now and then and secretly witness the orphic marriage of geometry with poetry’ (Melotti quoted in J. de Sanna, ‘Enchanted Lyricist’ in Fausto Melotti: Anti-Sculpture, exh. cat., New York, 1994, p. 26). Scultura A (I pendoli) perfectly embodies this coalition of rigorous precision and poetic beauty, creating a sculpture that is at once dynamic and absorbing, still and contemplative.
Throughout his career, Melotti had explored the materiality of sculpture, experimenting with the visual oppositions of movement and stasis, weight and lightness, rigidity and flexibility. Scultura A (I pendoli) encapsulates these dialectical states: the solid, static metal structure of the pendulum contrasts with the fine metal strands that hold the seemingly weightless spheres which appear to defy gravity by oscillating in a graceful, elliptical motion. Incorporating and integrating the negative space surrounding it, Scultura A (I pendoli) embodies a sense of perfect equilibrium, transforming the heavy, durability of metal into an ephemeral vision of lightness and movement. In 1963, five years before he conceived of the present work, Melotti wrote, ‘Confused, thirsting for quiet, we distance ourselves now and then and secretly witness the orphic marriage of geometry with poetry’ (Melotti quoted in J. de Sanna, ‘Enchanted Lyricist’ in Fausto Melotti: Anti-Sculpture, exh. cat., New York, 1994, p. 26). Scultura A (I pendoli) perfectly embodies this coalition of rigorous precision and poetic beauty, creating a sculpture that is at once dynamic and absorbing, still and contemplative.