Pietro Consagra
Racconto del demonio n. 2, 1963
bronze with golden patina, 83 × 58,5 × 15,5 cm
Invited by Giovanni Carandente to create two sculptures at the Italsider workshops in Savona to be placed in the streets of Spoleto in the summer of 1962, Consagra invented two composites, Colloquio col vento, intended for Piazza del Mercato, and Colloquio col demonio, to be located at the entrance to the Salaria Vecchia. Made up of five iron shapes aligned on a tubular structure of the same metal, in 1992 Colloquio col demonio was donated by the artist to the city to seal an unrepeatable occasion, according to the testimony of the author himself: "In '62 everything was happy in the life of art. Carandente had managed to organize the largest international sculpture event in the city in Spoleto. The greatest enjoyment ever had with so many sculptors in daily traffic. […] The sculptors of the world will always be grateful to Giovanni Carandente and Spoleto will remain unique”. Both Colloquio col vento and Colloquio col demonio constitute the expressive culmination of Consagra's research regarding the Colloquio series (on which he worked since 1952 to 1962) which revolutionized the relationship between the work and space.
from: L. Caprile, Gli artisti e l’Italsider, in Tutto è felice nella vita dell’arte. Omaggio a Giovanni Carandente, exhibition catalogue, edited by L. Caprile, S. Esengrini, Milano, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, 2015, pp. 16-17.
