Mauro Staccioli

A Arte Studio Invernizzi, Milan
Through July 8

Mauro Staccioli presents his last sculpture: a beam of iron, wood, and red cement that runs the entire length of the gallery’s room, forming the diagonal from wall to wall.This work is site specific like all his others – from the first work for his Volterra (1972) to the KölnSkulpture in Cologne (1999) – and so reacts to the environment for which it was conceived. It asserts itself like a heterogeneous fact in relation to space, but meanwhile, it measures itself and rationalizes its own dimensions. This results in a true yet eccentric continuation of the gallery’s own masonry. Both in the continuity between its sides and those of the room, and for the treatment of its surfaces, painted red, refinedly non-homogeneous.

Within the entire creative route of Staccioli, color, material, and form have precise relationships. Cultural, historical, and political values indicate the particular tone of red he chooses. Echoing the clay-like color of the earth, of terracotta utensils, and the roots in Tuscany’s history.
"I am an architect and at the same time a sculptor", says Staccioli, calling this specific work a sculpture, to underscore its factual aspect, while at the same time distancing himself from the art of Donald Judd and the whole minimalist climate. The work isn’t a project but a creation, and it makes sense in that it goes beyond the divide between manual and intellectual labor, and resists the internal dynamics of the art market because it can exist only in the space where it is placed.

The shape, in the parts parallel to the walls, is composed of multifaceted surfaces, giving it certain sense of stable imbalance.





Antonella Crippa
Translation by Cortney Price