Mauro Staccioli. Sensibile ambientale
curated by Alberto Fiz
Mauro Staccioli. Sensibile Ambientale is the first retrospective dedicated to the Tuscan artist following his death on 1 January this year at the age of 80. The exhibition traces the various creative periods of the sculptor’s work, his inexhaustible research and the relationship he always sought between his sculptures and their context.
Twenty-six works by Staccioli have been set to huge effect in the imposing spaces of the Baths of Caracalla and their subterranean network of tunnels and chambers. An exhibition which emphasizes from its very title the way in which this contemporary Italian artist always set such store on the relationship between his works and their settings.
The exhibition explores the period from the early Seventies to 2017, through sculptures like Seneffe, a ten-metre vortex of steel tubes, or the huge Portale, in corten steel, and works like Anello, an enormous eye, piercing and pierced by its surroundings, part of the Anelli series, possibly the most popular the artist produced. All the works establish a mute dialogue, a stimulating interaction, with each other and with the imposing setting of the Roman baths.
The artist’s first creative phase is illustrated by symbolic works such as Barriera and Piramide, redolent with ideological and political overtones, first exhibited in the Tuscan town of Volterra in 1972 in Staccioli’s first public exhibition, Sculture in Città. Triangolo dai Lati Curvi, Ellisse Verticale and Cerchio Imperfetto, together with other works based on elements of primary geometry, some of them in suspended equilibrium, have been set in the evocative surroundings of the Baths’ subterranean level, also home to the antique sculptures which once adorned the Baths.
Staccioli’s work has been defined as intervention-sculptures, because they actively modify their setting and trigger a mechanism involving a renewed awareness of the plastic arts as an authentic opportunity to redefine our social habitat as opposed to a nostalgic revival of lost grandeur.
An anthology of works where history reigns as the artist’s lodestar. A logical link with his choice of materials closely linked to change with the passing of time; from cement to iron and on to corten steel. «Objects exemplifying experiences, projects, ideas, time and history define places and their purpose,» as Mauro Staccioli wrote.
Start date
Wednesday 13 june 2018
End date
Sunday 04 november 2018
Terme di Caracalla
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla,
00153 Roma
Ticket
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Curated by
Alberto Fiz
Promoted by
Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma,
In collaboration with
Galleria Nazionale di Roma, Archivio Mauro Staccioli
And with
Electa