Arnaldo Pomodoro
Rotante primo sezionale n. 2, 1966
fiberglass, ø 120 cm
What distinguishes - and saves, I believe - Arnaldo's work from decaying into a precious commodity prey to consumer civilization is his dark and instinctual awareness of being the medium of an idea, of acting following an authentic impulse which remains so because it is imposed and based on rough work. I do not intend here to be sentimental about the harsh manual struggle for life; but one fact is certain: by working directly on his sculptures – as I have seen him do since the now distant times of his first jewels, the earthen negatives, the two-dimensional and informal sculptures, up to the large volumetric compositions, the corroded spheres , to the broken columns, to the very recent Rotanti of impeccable steel – Arnaldo has every time been able to redeem with his work the inevitable commodification of his works: he has saved himself – through a primitive and spontaneous personal symbolism – from mere elegance of form as an end in itself.
[…]
After a first long phase still linked to the sensitivity of the material, to the negativization of the image, a second phase had to explode, one which has already seen the creation of numerous works ranging from the Rotante to the Rotante massimo at the Rotante a fori e canali, works still partly in polished bronze, partly in stainless steel, in plexiglas; almost always devoid of any reference to the corroded surfaces or broken spheres of yesterday, and where instead the "negative", "destructive" element is constituted by the openings, by the blissful circular spaces.
from: G. Dorfles, in Libro per le sculture di Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milano, Gabriele Mazzotta editore, 1974, pp. 189-191.
Do you want to know more about this work?
Go to the Catalogue Raisonné online!
On loan to the Circolo Ministero Affari Esteri in Rome since 2017
