Lucio Del Pezzo
Il Teatro degli Arcimboldi, 2001
sandblasted and painted stainless steel, 300 × ∅ 300 cm
Since the very early 1960s, Del Pezzo intended to overcome the poetics of the informal and his expressive heritage with a research that suspended the painting in a dimension halfway between the painting and the bas-relief: on the surface, often projecting, colored signs stood out , but also strongly projecting object elements, usually treated in a single colour. Signs and objects all recalled the iconism and atmosphere of De Chirico's Metaphysical Painting, as if to underline a belonging, cultural rather than national. For Del Pezzo, sculpture is therefore only the accentuation of the characteristics that painting already possesses, from which it is distinguished by its monumental dimensions. The colored paints of Teatro degli Arcimboldi recall the liveliness of painting, and make the geometric shapes (columns, circle, obelisk...) playful, which stand out slenderly on the base, like characters in a theatrical show.
from: Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro. La Collezione permanente, exhibition catalogue, edited by G. Verzotti, A. Vettese, Milano, Skira, 2007, p. 173.
