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拍品专文
‘The column does not only correspond to an elementary geometric shape – the cylinder. On the contrary it is a motif that is full of memories. There is a relationship between the external surface of the column, on which I have made longitudinal and transversal gashes, and the signs, written interventions that emerge from the inside to cover it entirely or in part.’ ARNALDO POMODORO
Towering over the viewer at almost two-and-a-half metres in height, Colonna is a colossal column by one of Italy’s most celebrated recent sculptors. The bronze work, which has been treated with an opulent golden patina, is bookended by two smooth shell fragments. These components melt away to reveal an immense grid of sculptural detail, figuratively ambiguous and unfamiliarly fantastical. This visual language seems paradoxically retro-futuristic in its mechanomorphism, energised by modern technology and industry, yet reminiscent of a broken-down engine neglected on the scrap pile. Simultaneously, the unveiled detail on Colonna recalls the triumphal Trojan columns from Ancient Rome; whilst lacking the frieze narratives of magnificent antique artefacts, Pomodorro’s work similarly begs to be examined close-up. The juxtaposition of canonical columnal detail and original figuration has been noted by Bruno Corà, who examined a similar 1962 column by Pomodoro. ‘The material’, Corà claimed, ‘is eroded yet elaborated in ways that reveal structural complexities that seem to belong to mythological workshops of a future laid bare by an anticipated archaeology’ (B. Corà, ‘Arnaldo Pomodoro: The epic of a traveller in the labyrinths of form’, reproduced in Arnaldo Pomodoro, exh. cat., Tornabuoni Art, London, 2016, p. 14). By integrating classical ideals in architectonic sculpture alongside an industrially science-fiction aesthetic, Pomodoro has created a sculpture that is not of our time, yet neither a relic of another.
Pomodoro worked on his first columns in the 1960s, looking for a three-dimensional form that could develop and legitimise his morphic practices on an epic scale, subverting the canonical classicism and architectural functionality of a form steeped in rich art-historical value. ‘I knew’, the artist explained, ‘I had to move from relief to a bit more solid sculptural presence in my first curved columns. Actually, I think I had already achieved some integration of solid geometric form and ‘the sign’ in my reliefs. However, I knew that I had to make signs much larger in order to become more plastic.’ (A. Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York, 1982, p. 52). The present work carries out these intentions on a monumental scale, with symbols that become lost in translation, but allude to the relationships between organic and artificial, the natural and the machinic. Moving away from bas-relief work in the 1960s, the column became an integral character in Pomodoro’s sculptural language. It is a form that he has revisited throughout his astonishing career, a mysterious and complex vessel housing a coded iconographic language.
Towering over the viewer at almost two-and-a-half metres in height, Colonna is a colossal column by one of Italy’s most celebrated recent sculptors. The bronze work, which has been treated with an opulent golden patina, is bookended by two smooth shell fragments. These components melt away to reveal an immense grid of sculptural detail, figuratively ambiguous and unfamiliarly fantastical. This visual language seems paradoxically retro-futuristic in its mechanomorphism, energised by modern technology and industry, yet reminiscent of a broken-down engine neglected on the scrap pile. Simultaneously, the unveiled detail on Colonna recalls the triumphal Trojan columns from Ancient Rome; whilst lacking the frieze narratives of magnificent antique artefacts, Pomodorro’s work similarly begs to be examined close-up. The juxtaposition of canonical columnal detail and original figuration has been noted by Bruno Corà, who examined a similar 1962 column by Pomodoro. ‘The material’, Corà claimed, ‘is eroded yet elaborated in ways that reveal structural complexities that seem to belong to mythological workshops of a future laid bare by an anticipated archaeology’ (B. Corà, ‘Arnaldo Pomodoro: The epic of a traveller in the labyrinths of form’, reproduced in Arnaldo Pomodoro, exh. cat., Tornabuoni Art, London, 2016, p. 14). By integrating classical ideals in architectonic sculpture alongside an industrially science-fiction aesthetic, Pomodoro has created a sculpture that is not of our time, yet neither a relic of another.
Pomodoro worked on his first columns in the 1960s, looking for a three-dimensional form that could develop and legitimise his morphic practices on an epic scale, subverting the canonical classicism and architectural functionality of a form steeped in rich art-historical value. ‘I knew’, the artist explained, ‘I had to move from relief to a bit more solid sculptural presence in my first curved columns. Actually, I think I had already achieved some integration of solid geometric form and ‘the sign’ in my reliefs. However, I knew that I had to make signs much larger in order to become more plastic.’ (A. Pomodoro, quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York, 1982, p. 52). The present work carries out these intentions on a monumental scale, with symbols that become lost in translation, but allude to the relationships between organic and artificial, the natural and the machinic. Moving away from bas-relief work in the 1960s, the column became an integral character in Pomodoro’s sculptural language. It is a form that he has revisited throughout his astonishing career, a mysterious and complex vessel housing a coded iconographic language.