Igor Mitoraj: BiancoNero, Venice
A juxtaposition of black and white bronzes and marbles: Igor Mitoraj presents a series of new works at Contini Gallery
Artist Igor Mitoraj creates several new works especially for the BiancoNero exhibition: thus, sculptures in white Carrara marble and black Belgian marble and works in black patina bronze are presented in chromatic and material juxtaposition, enhanced by a highly evocative setting. Also displayed on the walls of the Gallery rooms is a series of icons on a gold background, for the creation of which Mitoraj used the ancient encaustic painting technique of which the Greeks and Pompeians were masters.
These new works are the result of extensive research on the part of the artist: a great connoisseur of the archaic classical world, Mitoraj is inspired by immediately recognizable mythological characters: Eros, Venus, Icarus, Centaur... which he translates into relic-like sculptures whose forms are fragmented and incomplete. Classicism is Mitoraj's main point of reference, a myth that may have waned but has not ended, a constant reminder for Western civilization, an indissoluble component of our DNA, an element that even the most unbridled technological modernism cannot completely eradicate.
