Waddington Galleries Ltd, London; Lillian Heidenberg Gallery, New York; Collection Barry Crown, Florida and Chicago
Exhibited
Miami, The Art Museum at Florida International University, American Art Today: Heads Only, April 8 – May 6, 1994
Literature
C. Damian and D. Morgan, American Art Today, heads only: April 8 – May 6, 1994, Miami, 1994, p. 3 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
The prevalence in [Mimmo Palladino’s] work of the epic mode over anything subjective or individualist--his affinity with the primordial, archaic, totemic phases of civilization. These distant origins, however, appear continuously in the present, and Paladino points toward them by means of fragmentary, enigmatic presences. Paladino’s technical means as an artist [is one] who often combines painting with relief elements: While all the projecting components (masks, small papier-mache or terra-cotta craters, sticks, various found objects such as umbrellas or bicycles),relate centrifugally to the canvas, they are all subsumed within the formal domain of the surface. Despite magmatic, ‘barbarian,’ at times disturbing contents, the end result is thus one of surprisingly classical moderation. All Paladino’s works are, in their own way, ‘silent,’ radiating a tacit agreement with the world and with things. Clearly this agreement has been achieved at great effort: through meditation, through concentration on the work and its difficult dilemmas. But it is a silent accord, an archaic, immemorial harmony. In Paladino’s work, inspiration derived from past art-pre-Roman sculpture, for instance--is simply a matter of borrowed iconography or erudite quotation. Paladino is a true master at reconciling sensibility and in tellect, as demonstrated in those works that are harmonized by a sort of minimalist abstraction (a tendency present in the artist’s development from the very beginning). M. Carboni, “Mimmo Paladino: Centro Per L’arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci- Reviews: Prato,” ArtForum, June, 2003
1987 Oil, acrylic, enamel and aluminum bowl on wooden panel in artist’s wooden frame. 78 3/4 x 59 x 8 1/2 in. (200 x 149.9 x 21.6 cm). Signed “Mimmo Paladino 1987” on the reverse.