are visually too “sophisticated.” Brancusi tried but most of his
sculpture is too self-conscious. Minimalism is visually simple but
it lacks depth and spiritual power. Unless soullessness is the expression of minimalism. Then it does succeed.
the tying of a sharp rock to the end of a stick to make a spear. It
alludes to the first shelters, the dark cold caves that our ancestors
inhabited. It alludes to the beginning of thought and of civilization. It alludes to the beginning of artistic expression.
But Italian Sonnet succeeds in expressing powerful, universal
truths simply, without ostentation, and without self-consciousness. Italian Sonnet is deep and without the surface bling of sophisticated pomp.
Italian Sonnet also connects us to our present. The sculpture is a
modern artwork with a modern aesthetic. It is abstract art, minimalist art, found art, assemblage art, land art, environmental art.
The sculpture connects all these modern movements by exhibiting their essence.
Italian Sonnet is a small sculpture, small enough to be held in
the palm of the hand, with big ideas. It represents the precarious binding of opposites: the eternal (rocks) with the temporal
(wood, twine), nature (rocks) with culture (dowel, twine and the
act of manipulation of these materials), male with female, light
with dark. Italian Sonnet is a universal icon that may well be
considered by future generations as one of the most important
sculptures of the twenty-first century.
Italian Sonnet
Art is justified, as man is justified, by the faculty of forming ideas…
- Kenneth Clark
Originally, Italian Sonnet was created as an architectural concept
model for my Master thesis. The thesis, titled Interpretation Of Poetic Form, involved translating the form of the sonnet into architecture. As such, Italian Sonnet is a translation (transformation?)
of the form of the Italian sonnet into a physical object. The lighter
horizontally oriented rock represents the octave, the darker vertically oriented rock represents the sestet and the dowel and
twine represent the volta, that key element that gives the sonnet
its iconic structure.
Artistic imagination can be more nearly described as the finding of
new form for old content, or--if the handy dichotomy of form and
content is eschewed--as a fresh conception of an old subject. The
invention of new things or situations is valuable only to the extent
that they serve to interpret an old--that is, universal--topic of human experience.
- Rudolf Arnheim
But Italian Sonnet is more than a concept model. And its humble
origin of conception belie a serious work of art. It is more than a
mere translation of a form of one medium into a form of another
medium. Italian Sonnet is a transcendent artwork. It is sculpture
as poetry. It is a sculpture that offers a fresh conception of an old
subject. It is a new interpretation of a universal topic of human
experience. Italian Sonnet connects the art of the past with the
art of the present with the art of the future.
Pre-historic creators, and creators we refer to as “primitive”, expressed universal truths simply and poetically without ostentatious surface glitter. We don’t make art like that because we
Italian Sonnet connects us to our past. It connects us to our beginnings. The sculpture alludes to the menhirs, the cromlechs,
the dolmens, and the Willendorf Venus. It alludes to the primitive
art of the primitive man. It alludes to the first rudimentary tools:
And Italian Sonnet connects us to our future. It connects us to
our future by expressing universal truths that always were, are
and will be. For example: the piece expresses man’s subjugation
of nature (the controlling of, or the “tying-up” of the forces of
nature). It expresses the “enslavement” of nature to men’s needs
and desires. It also expresses the precariousness of culture and of
civilization. Leave the sculpture outside or bury it in the ground
and in less than a year the twine and the wood dowel decompose and the only thing left will be two unconnected rocks. All
record of human intervention erased.
The allusions of the sculpture proliferate further, beyond those
of Western art. Italian Sonnet alludes to the form of the yin-yang
symbol. It alludes to the Japanese Zen garden with its stones
“floating” in a pool of combed sand. And like the stones of the
Zen garden that mean to express mountains, Italian Sonnet is a
small object that expresses monumental ideas.
Ultimately, it is the poetic richness of Italian Sonnet that makes it
one of the great sculptures of this century, and one of the great
spiritual works of art of any century. A simple idea expressed with
simple means, Italian Sonnet transcends physical matter and ascends to the realm of the spirit. The sculpture is both modern
and ancient. Italian Sonnet is universal in its primordial expression of the human condition. Maybe not just human condition,
but the condition of all life.