Mimmo Paladino Bronze and Iron

Paladino’s sculptures can be seen as ruminations on the fragile remnants of the past, but they also bind the past firmly to the present by drawing on our experience of more recent sculpture, by Brancusi, for example, or by Paladino’s compatriot, Lucio Fontana, or by Cy Twombly, another artist who works both as a painter and a sculptor. The figure plays a central role for Paladino, and if the emotions suggested by human gesture and expression remain resolutely enigmatic, the figures themselves create their own atmosphere of quiet drama. In a sculpture of 1993, the human presence is represented by masks and helmets laid out on a table, a display of trophies that evokes the grimness of the battlefield rather than the glory. In another, a life-size male figure patiently allows a flock of birds to settle on his naked body.