“Antonio Paradiso. Roots” is the anthological exhibition created by the Aps Francesco Netticurated by Tina Sirressi And Cecilia Paradiseopen until 30 September 2024 at the Francesco Netti Art GalleryMarchesale Palace in We will be in
Hill (BA).
The exhibition takes up the main themes of Paradiso’s career: the relationship between man and nature, the passion for travel, the mix between artistic research and anthropological investigationbetween “art” and disciplines such as paleontology and astronomy. It documents the artist’s path starting from the 60s, passing through the his participation in the Venice Biennale, up to the most recent production “Globalized Last Supper” made with the remains of the World Trade Center, already exhibited at the Palazzo Reale in Milan and currently in the “la Palomba” Sculpture Park in Matera, an archaeological site and former tuff quarry, which under the direction of Antonio Paradiso becomes a meeting point between art and nature, a reference point for many great names in contemporary sculpture.
More than synthetic steak. It was 1978 when Antonio Paradiso brought the scandal of intensive farming to a pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. In front of an astonished international audience, the artist from Puglia showed what was already happening in the stables, where the standards of controlled reproduction of cattle were applied. A bull, led by the artist, approached a “mechanical cow”, a metal structure that reproduces the shape of a cow. A deception used to prevent contact between animals even during reproduction.
Paradiso’s complaint aroused the ire of animal rights associations, who asked the authorities to suspend the installation. A counter-petition followed, with broad support from intellectuals. Those yellowed sheets, bearing illustrious signatures, will be on display until September 30 at the Palazzo Marchesale in Santeramo, together with sculptures, canvases and photographs by the sculptor born in the Murgia municipality in 1936.
Scandal is not the purpose of a work of art. But the artist can scandalize with simplicity, calmness, and above all with
adherence to an authentic vision of things and the world. Through a work, the artist shares a prophecy, whether we like it or not. In the turbulent and historic Seventies Paradiso made films that illustrate the education of chicks, the escape of lizards between rocks, the scorched fields of the Murge. Other films, in the series “Anthropological Theater,” show dreamlike dances, dressing and sacred rites staged in the streets of the villages of a remote Puglia, chosen precisely because it is far from the commonplaces of art and narration. In this case, photography and cinema are forms of sculpture.
Paradiso’s creativity does not feel the weight of materials. Since the 1980s, stone and metal have taken the form of birds and celestial bodies. Sculptures that do not mark places but are placed there discreetly. Paradiso signs the steel column that stands out at the entrance of the former Ilva in Taranto, carved with the silhouettes of birds with outstretched wings, disciplined flocks that trace straight lines and arches. They are shapes contemplated by the meadows of the Appian Way, in the countryside where Paradiso watched over the grazing horses and his conscience. Paradiso also designed the heavy slabs of Apulian stone, in the shape of birds, that decorated the streets around the Duomo in Milan. In Bari, at Parco 2 giugno, a white stone sundial stands out, another reference to the sky, as do the star maps engraved on stone slabs colonized by lichens and exhibited at Parco della Palomba, on the outskirts of Matera.
The exhibition set up in Santeramo until September 30, 2024, is a treasure chest of small and large testimonies of a patient and determined research, which took place between Milan, the city of training and adoption, and the African deserts, where Paradiso made adventurous crossings. In the eyes of Paradiso, the desert becomes the most fishy sea. The artist returns to Italy loaded with new and shiny objects, among the many to be discovered in the exhibition curated by Cecilia Paradiso, Tina Sirressi and Ubaldo Fraccalvieri.
Carlo Franza