Mauro Staccioli

Mauro Staccioli (Volterra, 1937 – Milano, 2018)

After participating in significant temporary exhibitions in Volterra (1972), at the Venice Biennale (1978), and in Verona (1981), which explored the relationship between sculpture and the urban or museum context, Mauro Staccioli arrived at Celle in the spring of 1982 and became the first Italian artist to engage with an outdoor space.

Just beyond the Teahouse, where the forest thickens, the artist found a point where he could insert his artwork without disturbing the undergrowth. There, he created a form that became a true device for observing the park environment in its entirety. After marking the site with stakes, a team of carpenters worked to create a large triangular wooden structure, reinforced in order to receive the concrete cast.

“A unique sign, a point. The maximum convergence of energy; no dispersion in the description and its linear development, which describes a sign. The sculpture faces a road, at right angles, as if it were a sundial pointing upwards, under the branches of the trees, and the lateral profiles of the sculpture run downwards, inwards, under the supporting surface, beyond appearance. A temporal and global reading, a presence as forceful as a stone in a pond, a sound in silence. Many tall trees punctuate the spacevertically, organizing a network of architectural ribs. A set of natural subjects and a full, unique and single form… Substance of an idea and a form that is organized, constructed, built. Two complementary materials.” Mauro Staccioli inGori Collection: Site Specific Art at the Fattoria di Celle, ed. Gli Ori, Pistoia, 2009, p389

“Mauro Staccioli’s work takes up a rationalist point of view […], although the effects of weathering, which this artist has chosen to accept, are beginning to make the work picturesque. The large minimal blade cuts through the woods as if to point out the dome formed by the treetops where the sunlight itself breaks up into descending rays, giving this huge block of cement a strange tentativeness.” Robert Hobbs inArt in Arcadia, ed. Umberto Allemandi & C, Torino, 1993, p.41

Works by the artist

Celle Sculpture

For more info:

maurostaccioli.org