.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
Lot 91
Arnaldo Pomodoro's Disco is over two metres tall. It comprises a disc of gleaming bronze with a gold patina that has been subjected to Pomodoro's own meticulous 'erosions'. The sheer, monolithic pristineness of the golden surface has thus been deliberately picked away by the artist, creating an incredible variety of light effects and reflections. The so-called erosions, as is clear from closer inspection, have actually been carefully built up by the artist, resulting in effects within the fissures that resemble, say, a modern cityscape from above or the circuitry from some mysterious computer as well as some of the more mysterious and regular crystalline forms that might be produced in nature.
Pomodoro has long created variations on what is now considered his signature style. His monumental sculptures such as Disco have been incorporated into civic spaces throughout the world. Disco perfectly demonstrates why: on the one hand, there is sheer fascination with the incredibly worked innards of the sculpture, which contrast so fantastically with the shell of the disc. On the other hand, Pomodoro's aesthetic chimes perfectly with the times, hinting at the age of technology and science in which we live... and at its potential pitfalls. The fact that the surface of Disco appears to have been cut away in order to reveal the workings within hints at the power, both for construction and for destruction, of technology. The fact that Pomodoro has presented the surface as eroded hints at some process of deterioration. In this way, he shows this sun-like disc of gleaming metal collapsing in upon itself. In the nuclear age, a sense of Man's abuse of technology has become all too apparent. At the same time, it helped to usher in the age of existentialism which Pomodoro's work also mines. After all, the intricate and intimate accumulation of forms which appears to have come into existence underneath the surface of the Disco is a form of writing, the record of the artist's own gesture.
Pomodoro primarily developed his hallmark style during the late 1950s and early 1960s, during a period of incredible upheaval in the art world. His 'erosions' have often been linked with the pictures of Paul Klee. They are essential gestures that speak of nature as much as of man. At the same time, Pomodoro himself admitted that one of his greatest watersheds came during a journey to the United States in 1959. He was particularly struck by the works of Constantin Brancusi, whose influence can perhaps be felt in the smooth surface and the regular form of Disco . However, as Pomodoro explained, his reaction to the Romanian master's work was somewhat unexpected: 'Observing the sculptures I felt their force with deep emotion, but at the same time I experienced a deep wish to destroy their perfection. I imagined them in my mind's eye full of worm holes and corrosion, and then the idea came to me of setting all of my particular signs in the interior of these geometric solids, turning the abstract image of Brancusi inside out. Klee and Brancusi were my putative fathers, but I owe a great deal to the United States for awakening this new consciousness' (Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, 'Monuments and Anti-monuments', pp. 57-77, F. Gualdoni (ed.), Arnaldo Pomodoro: Catalogo ragionato della sculptura, Vol. I, Milan, 2007, p. 59).
This is clear in Disco , which appears to reveal the inner workings of a Brancusi, the blood and guts bubbling and churning under the surface. Pomodoro also explained that his exposure to the Abstract Expressionists was important to his understanding of a means of reconciling the Kleelike details with the smooth 'exterior' of his works: 'I was influenced by these large American action paintings, and the original way in which they managed to combine intimate human gesture and monumental scale. You might say that I am trying to resolve a similar structural problem' (Pomodoro, quoted in ibid., p. 63). As he said, 'I care how the details function. I want the view at close quarters to be a totally different but related experience. I insist that the sculpture surfaces be read carefully and slowly, even though just a moment before you saw the ensemble forms as essentially geometric and monumental' (Pomodoro, quoted in ibid., p.63).
That surface is all-important in Pomodoro's works. Rich contrasts and plays of light are created by the tension between the shadows within the nooks and crannies of the interior sections and the reflective shell. This allows Disco to interact with its surroundings, to become engaged with its environment. 'I believe the light reflections are very important,' Pomodoro has said. 'The sculptures actually change during the course of the day, in sunshine and shade. The mirroring effects pick up the environment, the spectator[...] That makes the sculpture very alive, a part of you, of nature in any sort of spot, in a park or in a garden, in the city' (Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York, 1982, p. 104). This interpenetration occurs not just because of the effects of the light, but also because of the negative space of the inner areas, where the division between the work its surroundings is blurred, making its relationship to our world all the more dynamic.
Arnaldo Pomodoro's Disco is over two metres tall. It comprises a disc of gleaming bronze with a gold patina that has been subjected to Pomodoro's own meticulous 'erosions'. The sheer, monolithic pristineness of the golden surface has thus been deliberately picked away by the artist, creating an incredible variety of light effects and reflections. The so-called erosions, as is clear from closer inspection, have actually been carefully built up by the artist, resulting in effects within the fissures that resemble, say, a modern cityscape from above or the circuitry from some mysterious computer as well as some of the more mysterious and regular crystalline forms that might be produced in nature.
Pomodoro has long created variations on what is now considered his signature style. His monumental sculptures such as Disco have been incorporated into civic spaces throughout the world. Disco perfectly demonstrates why: on the one hand, there is sheer fascination with the incredibly worked innards of the sculpture, which contrast so fantastically with the shell of the disc. On the other hand, Pomodoro's aesthetic chimes perfectly with the times, hinting at the age of technology and science in which we live... and at its potential pitfalls. The fact that the surface of Disco appears to have been cut away in order to reveal the workings within hints at the power, both for construction and for destruction, of technology. The fact that Pomodoro has presented the surface as eroded hints at some process of deterioration. In this way, he shows this sun-like disc of gleaming metal collapsing in upon itself. In the nuclear age, a sense of Man's abuse of technology has become all too apparent. At the same time, it helped to usher in the age of existentialism which Pomodoro's work also mines. After all, the intricate and intimate accumulation of forms which appears to have come into existence underneath the surface of the Disco is a form of writing, the record of the artist's own gesture.
Pomodoro primarily developed his hallmark style during the late 1950s and early 1960s, during a period of incredible upheaval in the art world. His 'erosions' have often been linked with the pictures of Paul Klee. They are essential gestures that speak of nature as much as of man. At the same time, Pomodoro himself admitted that one of his greatest watersheds came during a journey to the United States in 1959. He was particularly struck by the works of Constantin Brancusi, whose influence can perhaps be felt in the smooth surface and the regular form of Disco . However, as Pomodoro explained, his reaction to the Romanian master's work was somewhat unexpected: 'Observing the sculptures I felt their force with deep emotion, but at the same time I experienced a deep wish to destroy their perfection. I imagined them in my mind's eye full of worm holes and corrosion, and then the idea came to me of setting all of my particular signs in the interior of these geometric solids, turning the abstract image of Brancusi inside out. Klee and Brancusi were my putative fathers, but I owe a great deal to the United States for awakening this new consciousness' (Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, 'Monuments and Anti-monuments', pp. 57-77, F. Gualdoni (ed.), Arnaldo Pomodoro: Catalogo ragionato della sculptura, Vol. I, Milan, 2007, p. 59).
This is clear in Disco , which appears to reveal the inner workings of a Brancusi, the blood and guts bubbling and churning under the surface. Pomodoro also explained that his exposure to the Abstract Expressionists was important to his understanding of a means of reconciling the Kleelike details with the smooth 'exterior' of his works: 'I was influenced by these large American action paintings, and the original way in which they managed to combine intimate human gesture and monumental scale. You might say that I am trying to resolve a similar structural problem' (Pomodoro, quoted in ibid., p. 63). As he said, 'I care how the details function. I want the view at close quarters to be a totally different but related experience. I insist that the sculpture surfaces be read carefully and slowly, even though just a moment before you saw the ensemble forms as essentially geometric and monumental' (Pomodoro, quoted in ibid., p.63).
That surface is all-important in Pomodoro's works. Rich contrasts and plays of light are created by the tension between the shadows within the nooks and crannies of the interior sections and the reflective shell. This allows Disco to interact with its surroundings, to become engaged with its environment. 'I believe the light reflections are very important,' Pomodoro has said. 'The sculptures actually change during the course of the day, in sunshine and shade. The mirroring effects pick up the environment, the spectator[...] That makes the sculpture very alive, a part of you, of nature in any sort of spot, in a park or in a garden, in the city' (Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York, 1982, p. 104). This interpenetration occurs not just because of the effects of the light, but also because of the negative space of the inner areas, where the division between the work its surroundings is blurred, making its relationship to our world all the more dynamic.