Arnaldo Pomodoro confirms the authenticity of the present lot, which he conceived as a single architectural environment rather than an independent sculpture. As such, he will only recognise the work’s authenticity if kept intact. The artist is available to offer advice on the future installation of the work.

Contrary to the forthcoming zeitgeist of the years leading in to ideological minimalism and radical reductionism, Arnaldo Pomodoro created a decorative balustrade for a private residence using a very primitive system of stalactites and stalagmites. The elements transformed the modernist gesture of the spiral staircase in to a grottolike environment, reverberating the spirit of the most sophisticated baroque style, which next to the intellectual invention of Borromini could present mysterious follies like the Bomarzo's monsters in the countryside near Rome.

The sculptural forms that contain and define the staircase are a combination of science fiction imagination and esoteric forms that bring to mind Wilfredo Lam's magical figures. Like all Pomodoro's sculptures the skinny poles suspended from the top, acting as corroded pillars, bring to mind a possible archaeology of the future. This decoration appears in perfect sync with all of Pomodoro's language and formal dimension: a dysfunctional structure which is defying the very modernity of its surrounding like a provocation and a challenge for the client to accept or reject. With this sculpture Pomodoro claims the autonomy of sculpture towards architecture, defining at the same time both the utter difference and yet the possibility of an enriching dialogue.

Francesco Bonami

Arnaldo Pomodoro confirms the authenticity of the present lot, which he conceived as a single architectural environment rather than an independent sculpture. As such, he will only recognise the work’s authenticity if kept intact. The artist is available to offer advice on the future installation of the work.