Monumento al marinaio, 1998

Wood, sand and paint, 72,3×71,5×69,5 cm
Mauro Staccioli Archive Museum, Volterra

For the city of Molfetta in 1998, having to deal with the theme “Monument to the sailor”, Mauro Staccioli imagined two triangular shapes, one white and one red, with a rounded base to give the impression of swaying pushed by the sea breeze. The solution immediately recalls boats and relates to the precarious equilibrium, a recurring theme in his sculpture in recent years, thus proposing, among other things, the idea of the temporariness of the sailor’s profession with its continuous oscillation between sea and land. The triangular form with the shorter side curved had previously been presented in the intervention realized for the Fondazione Mudima in Milan in 1992, but with the difference that, there, it was upturned and embedded between the floor and the ceiling.

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