Artiscope ‘07, 2007

Wood and paint, 42.7x40x20 cm
Mauro Staccioli Archive Museum, Volterra

The triangular figure first appeared in Staccioli’s constructed lexicon in 1979 in Martina Franca. From this moment, the sculptor increasingly deepens his investigation into the potential of the triangular form; in the triangle, he rediscovers the beauty of geometric perfection but also the tension of a plastic element that contains within itself total stability and potential instability at the same time. These assumptions are further developed when the form in the early 2000s opens up, leaving room for experimentation in which plastic intervention and environment increasingly interrelate more and more. In this sense, then, Staccioli intervened in 2007 in the Belgian gallery Artiscope in Brussels, creating a large corten steel triangle right next to the entrance. It features the now typical unstable balance, vertically supported as it is only by the support of two vertices, one on the ground, the other on the façade of the building.

“I recently began working on the triangle form again – something I often need to do, on a regular basis – but this time I designed them like set squares: empty forms allowing me to peer through sculpture and see the landscape in the background, whether it be a building or wood”.

Mauro Staccioli, At the roots of sculpting, Corraini, 2008 (texts by Gillo Dorfles, Maria Laura Gelmini, Marco Bazzini, Luca Massimo Barbero)

© Enrico Fontolan, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Insitute, Roma. Courtesy Archivio Mauro Staccioli.