Scultura Lingua Morta

Description

Scultura Lingua Morta takes its title from a short confessional text written in 1945 by the sculptor Arturo Martini. Martini had taken commissions from the state throughout the Fascist period; he was also the first to make a monument to the resistance.

The essays in this catalogue cover four key conceptions of the monument, viewed through the sculptors Andreotti, Martini, Melotti and Fontana. Taken together they not only represent a generation, but also four very singular ways of dealing with sculpture - and the people who order it.

The Fascist regime pushed the monument into the foreground, making it necessary to tackle this question. This catalogue asks how the focus on the monument had repercussions for modern sculpture, and whether, indeed, wrestling with the problem of the monument contributed to the modernism of the Italian position.

Offering side by side texts in English and Italian, an introductory essay by Penelope Curtis (Curator of the Henry Moore Institute) and four essays on prominent Italian sculptors of this period:

Libero Andreotti
Silvia Lucchesi

Arturo Martini
Flavio Fergonzi

Fausto Melotti
Daria Filardo

Lucio Fontana
Paolo Campiglio