Arnaldo Pomodoro arrives in Soliera with a 50-foot obelisk and a major exhibition

The exhibition {sur}face, a solo show of Arnaldo Pomodoro (Morciano di Romagna, 1926) set up at Castello Campori in Soliera (Modena) and curated by Lorenzo Crespi, starts on October 17, 2020: it will last until January 10, 2021 and will also see the installation of a monumental work, theObelisk for Cleopatra, which for the next three years will be an integral part of the urban context of Soliera. The title of the exhibition(Arnaldo Pomodoro. {sur}face) stems from a play on words between the term “surface”(surface) and the term “face”(face), which is intended to emphasize the double level of reading of the exhibition, which in fact aims to recount a previously unseen aspect of Arnaldo Pomodoro’s art, that of theman before thework, through a path rooted in the theatrical experiences that began since the 1950s, passing through the Obelisk and the sculptures of the 2000s, up to the bronze sketch of the environmental work Entrance into the Labyrinth (1995-2011) which, as the artist himself writes, is “a reflection on all my work: the gesture of reappropriation and recovery of an artistic activity that has spanned the decades of my life and constitutes a kind of synthesis of it.”

The exhibition is divided into two parts covering seven exhibition rooms. The first part is dedicated to the staging for Ahmad Shawqi ’s The Passion of Cleopatra on the ruins of Gibellina (1989) and presents the original stage costumes, preparatory drawings and set sketches, as well as photographs and videos of the performance. The second part of the exhibition recounts the genesis of Ingresso nel labirinto (Entrance into the Labyrinth), a 170-square-meter environmental work begun in 1995 and built almost entirely of fiberglass patinated with copper leaf in the basement of the former Riva-Calzoni building in Milan (formerly home of the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro), through the reliefs Untitled (fiberglass, 2005) and Continuum (bronze, 2010) and Ingresso nel labirinto, studio (bronze, 2011-2020), made especially for this exhibition and exhibited for the first time to the public at Castello Campori in Soliera. Finally, in the last room visitors will be able to experience Labyr-Into, one of the first immersive applications in Italy in the field of contemporary art and the first ever dedicated to a work by Arnaldo Pomodoro, based on Gear’VR’ and ’Oculus’RifT technology. The project, created by Oliver Pavicevic and Steve Piccolo, constitutes a free interpretation of Entrance into the Labyrinth, in its 3D version, a work within the work, as well as within the work.

Also part of the project is a room entirely dedicated to children, designed at “child height” and equipped with audio and video teaching aids, and guided tours and educational workshops curated by the Educational Department of the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation of Milan and carried out in collaboration with the “Il Mulino” playroom in Soliera. Guided tours for groups of adults, guided tours for families (with small workshops) and interactive guided tours aimed at schools of all levels will then be organized during the exhibition. Upon online registration, it will also be possible to access interactive activities to discover the environmental work Entrance into the Labyrinth, developed within the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation website and aimed at everyone.

Finally, the public will be able to admire theObelisk for Cleopatra, granted on loan for free use to the City of Soliera for three years: a fourteen-meter work, designed in 1989 in reference to the staging of Cleopatra and built in 2008 in corten steel and bronze. The four vertical faces present a series of emblematic and symbolic signs that refer to Egyptian hieroglyphics and informal sign. The chromatic diversity between the rusted corten steel shaft and the patinated bronze inserts lend solemnity to the work, which deeply connotes the public space in which it is installed.

“The scenic projects, large-scale works and environmental installations,” explains curator Lorenzo Respi, “are the tangible evidence that the man-artist has tirelessly sought the complexity of reality in perfect forms, corroding them with a powerful informal sign, instinctive but always rational, capable of revealing the deception of the senses when life is lived only superficially. {sur}face is a timelapse journey into Arnaldo Pomodoro’s interiority to discover the passions that stimulated his creativity and oriented his critical gaze toward life and history. The theatrical mask that the actor wears, handing the limelight to his character, and the subterranean labyrinth that he disorients by winding incessantly around himself are the boundaries of a mental space within which Arnaldo Pomodoro struggles to delimit his yearning for infinitude, a metaphor for the freedom and serenity that every human being should deserve. {sur}face is a total experience, spatial and virtual, analog and digital, to know man.”

“The magnetic presence of the Obelisk for Cleopatra, which will inhabit the square of Soliera for three years,” says the mayor of Soliera, Roberto Solomita, “gives the immediate measure of how crucial opening to the languages of contemporary art is to consolidate the cultural identity of our city. Thanks to the intimate and extraordinary journey inside the work of Arnaldo Pomodoro, Castello Campori confirms its vocation for the contemporary, as a place capable of welcoming visitors and igniting deep curiosity.”

The exhibition will be open on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with free admission. In compliance with current regulations, access will be limited; therefore, reservations are recommended (by phone +39 059 568580, or email info@fondazionecampori.it). The catalog is published by All Around Art with texts by Arnaldo Pomodoro and Lorenzo Respi and rich iconographic apparatus. For more information, it is possible to visit the Campori Foundation website. The exhibition, realized with the support of Le Gallerie Shopping Center (main sponsor) and Granarolo, is promoted by the Municipality of Soliera and the Campori Foundation, with the contribution of the Emilia Romagna Region as part of the extraordinary call for the revitalization of historic centers, and is produced by All Around Art in collaboration with the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation of Milan.

Pictured: Arnaldo Pomodoro, Entrance into the Labyrinth (1995-2011). View of the rotary press room. Ph. Credit Dario Tettamanzi

Arnaldo Pomodoro arrives in Soliera with a 50-foot obelisk and a major exhibition

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