Grosseto, six large sculptures by Sauro Cavallini on outdoor exhibition to pay homage to Dante

Entitled Dynamics . The Monumental Sculptures of Sauro Cavallini , the art exhibition already on view in Piazza Dante in Grosseto, 700 years after the death of Dante Alighieri. Curated by Maria Anna Di Pede, director of the Centro Studi Cavallini, the exhibition features six large bronze sculptures made by Sauro Cavallini (La Spezia, 1927 - Fiesole, 2016) that will run until Sept. 30. The event is promoted by the municipality and organized by the Fondazione Grosseto Cultura, in collaboration with the Centro Studi Cavallini of Fiesole (FI), the lending institution.

An open-air exhibition for all to see, in the Covid era. Cavallini’s bronze figures, on display for the first time in Grosseto in Piazza Dante, are thus meant to represent not only the interpretation of three-dimensional sculptural movement, but also a transition back to complete normality.

“One of our first intentions was to make Art accessible to the entire community,” said Antonfrancesco Vivarelli Colonna, mayor of Grosseto, with deputy mayor and councillor for Culture, Luca Agresti. “Promoting, therefore, the display of a sculpture in a square or a work immersed among the people is something that is increasingly appreciable and incentivizable. Our desire was to bring art back to the streets, to turn Grosseto into a kind of permanent exhibition, and I think we have taken many steps in this direction. I think our goal is being realized in the best way, and Sauro Cavallini’s works are a luxury of which we should be very proud.”

“One of the main objectives of the institution that I preside over,” added Giovanni Tombari, president of Fondazione Grosseto Cultura, with Mauro Papa, director of Le Clarisse Cultural Pole, “has always been to promote art through forms that are shared and within everyone’s reach. Sauro Cavallini’s exhibition perfectly reflects that intention, with six works set up in Grosseto’s main square for five months. Majestic works that well represent a complete artist, not only a sculptor but also a painter, a multifaceted talent who has been able to converse with matter in a sublime way. Therefore, we are certain that this prestigious exhibition of Sauro Cavallini will be another fundamental piece to compose the mosaic of the cultural identity of our Grosseto.”

The works on display

There will be six monumental bronze sculptures, created by Sauro Cavallini between 1967 and 1984, on display at Via and Piazza Dante in Grosseto, although they actually represent five groups, since the Titans group is double. For three works, the choice fell on realizations inspired by mythology, while for Amore Universo and Balletto Multiplo the artist wanted to pay homage to the deepest of feelings in one case and the absolute harmony expressed by bodies dancing in space in the other.

Amore Universo (1974; bronze, 230 x 350 x 170 cm), the first work in the exhibition, consists of two asexual figures embracing each other merging their bodies into a single being and extending in a play of balances and correspondences that aims to enhance the lightness and absolute freedom of the composition. Love and Universe are for Cavallini the symbol of an indissoluble universal bond, of a love that envelops creation and creatures with the same extraordinary intensity (love as brotherhood, as peace, as sharing and union among peoples). “Love to the bitter end,” the author wrote among his reflections, “toward profound ideals and creation.” It continues with Balletto Multiplo (1984; bronze, 260 x 280 x 250 cm), a composition consisting of three sinuous silhouettes that move harmoniously and are arranged according to a choreography around the central figure, lifted in an agile momentum. Dance has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Cavallini, who has created dancers and dancing figures posed in a wide variety of gestures and poses. The movement of the body in tune with music has long been investigated by the sculptor.

The sculpture Centaur (1967; bronze, 80 x 338 x 85 cm) depicts one of the best-known protagonists of Greek mythology, a monstrous and fantastic being half man and half horse. Anchored to the plinth with his hind legs, the centaur expresses his full feral nature in the tension of his body stretching upward. This is a sculpture that constituted a challenge for Cavallini: in fact, it was a matter of bringing to life an ideal clash between man and centaur, between wisdom and aggression. Icarus (1983; bronze, 200 x 220 cm, pictured) depicts the mythological character in the act of launching himself to take flight and escape from the labyrinth that his father, Daedalus, had built to enclose the Minotaur. Cavallini depicts him with outstretched arms resembling outstretched wings, his body hunched forward and his head bowed, his left leg bent over the plinth (the work’s only point of support) and his right leg slung sideways to resume the movement of his arms. The figure of Icarus, for Cavallini, expresses man’s ability to overcome his own limitations and represents for the artist the “inspiring father of all future progress.” Finally, the Titans (1968; bronze, 60 x3 10 and 50 x 210 cm), creatures generated by Uranus and Gaea and endowed with extraordinary strength, are depicted tall, slender, with arms along their bodies or raised to the sky, charged with an inner energy restrained but ready to explode.

Who was Sauro Cavallini

Active for more than half a century, Sauro Cavallini dealt with different forms of expression (drawing, painting, but especially sculpture) and succeeded in obtaining important commissions. His works are in the collections of the Vatican City, the Principality of Monaco, the European Parliament in Strasbourg, as well as in the collections of public administrations and banking institutions. Many awards have been received by Sauro Cavallini during his lifetime, but since his passing in 2016.

Thanks to the opening to the public of his atelier on the hill of Fiesole (FI) in January 2017, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Study Center named after him and in the presence of the then President of the Regional Council of Tuscany (and now President of the Region) Eugenio Giani and Mayor Anna Ravoni, several solo exhibitions of the artist have been promoted, including Intrusions in 2017 at the Archaeological Museum of Fiesole, and then again exhibitions in Pietrasanta and Switzerland in 2018, up to the major retrospective Luce e Ombra inaugurated by the Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella that theAccademia delle Arti e del Disegno of Florence dedicated to him the same year. For all information you can visit Sauro Cavallini’s official website.

Grosseto, six large sculptures by Sauro Cavallini on outdoor exhibition to pay homage to Dante

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