Mimmo Paladino
Tre cannonate per Arnaldo, 2005
terracotta, ∅ 130 cm each one (3 elements)
The three large spheres of Paladino appear to be made of iron, but instead they are made of terracotta. In all his work there is a continuous exchange of functions which also leads to the mimetic play between materials. Paintings that expand in space becoming installations, anthropomorphic sculptures full of pictorial signs or engravings in the material, figures inlaid in marble, painted wood to create thick bas-reliefs. Paladino's imagination and his desire to make signs, to score to the point of declared redundancy, has no limits, nor does the repertoire that inspires him seem to have any. On the surface of these which ironically want to be cannonballs, we see a series of enigmatic figures, forming an integral part of that repertoire, which tell of an archaic universe populated by totemic figures whose mystery the artist, and we with him, do not stop questioning. Without the mystery ever being solved, the work lives in its continuous re-presentation, even when it is cloaked in irony as in our case.
from: Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro. La Collezione permanente, exhibition catalogue, edited by G. Verzotti, A. Vettese, Milano, Skira, 2007, p. 177.
