Paesaggi Orientali, 1973
Lead, burnt paper boats, wooden balls
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Presented as part of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift
Italian artist Pier Paolo Calzolari is a prominent figure of the Arte Povera movement, which flourished in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s. Calzolari utilised media that had not previously been deployed in artistic practice, such as burnt wood, salt, lead, and moss, whose associative references served to foreground nature as a continuous living process, explore memory, and critique the emergence of consumer society in the postwar period. His seminal, wall-mounted sculpture Paesaggi Orientali consists of lead plates, whose surfaces bear traces of burnt paper boats and wooden balls. Through the contrast of materials, Calzolari creates a quasi-landscape that poetically evokes the notions of travel, decay, and the transience of existence.
1978, the year when Paesaggi Orientali was created, proved decisive for Calzolari, as he participated with great success in the Venice Biennale. It was a period during which he turned toward a more lyrical and narrative form of art, while his reputation was cemented for his ability to transform humble materials into vessels of spirituality. More specifically, Paesaggi Orientali is a sculptural setting that focuses on alchemical poetry and the idea of a journey. The choice of materials is far from accidental. The lead’s solid, dull surface conjures a landscape or seascape. At the same time, the material carries an implicit reference to alchemy, for which lead was the fundamental metal, the starting point for the process of transmutation. The burnt paper boats are a recurring motif in the artist’s work, representing fragility. The destruction they have undergone, however, evokes the sense of a journey that may have been violently interrupted. Finally, the wooden balls introduce a rhythmic, almost musical element into the landscape’s horizontal composition.
Pier Paolo Calzolari was born in Bologna, Italy, in 1943. He lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.
