“Consagra rejected the tradition of three-dimensional monumental sculpture, developing a more direct and free interaction between art, audience and environment”
This book highlights the work of Pietro Consagra from 1947 to 1967: the first two crucial creative decades of his activity, which saw his affirmation as one of the pioneers in the renewal of international modern sculpture.
Consagra is one of Europe’s most renowned post-war sculptors. Born in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, in 1944 he moved to Rome, the “open city” that was beginning its civic and material reconstruction after the dramatic years of World War II. The artist developed his highly distinctive vision for a new sculpture after a formative visit to Paris in 1946, which marked the beginning of an active dialogue with the international avant-garde, he realised his first abstract sculptures: they were not modelled as a whole, but instead constructed of silhouetted forms built of overlapping planes.
In his revolutionary invention of “scultura frontale” (frontal sculpture), first theorized in 1952, Consagra realised almost two-dimensional, thin works that in their “frontal” placing rejected the tradition of three-dimensional and monumental sculpture, in order to develop a more direct and free interaction between art, audience and environment.
Edited by Franesca Pola
With an essay by Luca Massimo Barbero