Mauro Staccioli

Mauro Staccioli (11 February 1937 – 1 January 2018) was an Italian sculptor
After studying at the Art Institute in Volterra, Staccioli started teaching and in 1968 joined the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan.
At the end of the 1960s, Staccioli decided to dedicate himself to sculpture. His idea is to meet people where they live which leads him to create sculptures for urban places. His sculptures are “marks”, traces of a passage; he wants to affect the people who are usually found in a place and prompt them to experience that place in a different way. His sculptures always have a strong relationship with the place where he works.
Since the beginning of the 1970s, he has chosen urban environment and, with sculpture, tries to give answers to social questions. His linguistic choice is characterized by the coherence, the essential shapes and by the perfect adherence to the setting where he realize his “sculpture-intervention”. He proceeds in a very rigorous way, studying the history and characteristics of the places where he is called to work. With his sculptures he marks the place, transforming the usual perception of the people who come across them. Wikipedia

Giuseppe Spagnulo - Modern Art

Giuseppe Spagnulo (28 December 1936 – 15 June 2016) was an Italian sculptor.
Grande Ruota, sculpture by Giuseppe Spagnulo in BochumSpagnulo was born in Grottaglie, Taranto. At young age he learned to work on the lathe in his father's ceramic worshop. Between 1952 and 1958 he studied at the Faenza Art Institute for Ceramics and then he moved to Milan, where he enrolled at the Brera Academy and worked as an assistant for Arnaldo Pomodoro and Lucio Fontana.
In the late 1960s, Spagnulo started working on his first sculptures, including the corten steel installation "Black Panther" (1968-1969), which was exhibited at the 1972 Venice Biennale. In 1976 he was at the Venice Biennale again, this time with a solo presentation, and in 1977 he was invited to Documenta in Kassel.
Spagnulo's sculptural style is characterized by the massive dimensions of his sculptures, often made of iron and whose subjects are generally abstract and tend to conceptualism. In the 1990s he started focusing on other materials, such as terracotta and steel. Many of his work are on display in public places in cities such as Rome, Bochum, Venice and Milan.Wikipedia

 

Luciano Fabro - Conceptual Art - Arte Povera movement

Luciano Fabro (November 20, 1936 – June 22, 2007) was an Italian sculptor, conceptual artist and writer associated with the Arte Povera movement.
One of Fabro’s first pieces was called Tubo da mettere tra i fiori (Tube to place among flowers), 1963. It was a site-specific installation designed for a Milanese garden, even if it was never displayed there; it was made of telescopic steel tubes. He made several works that deal with steel tubes in dialogue with basic physical laws of nature. In 1965 he had his first solo show, at the Galleria Vismara, in Milan, where he combined mirror pieces with spatial lines. Around 1966, he began to make performative works such as Indumenti: posaseni, calzari, bandoliera (Garments: bra, boots, cross-belt), 1966; Allestimento Teatrale (Cube di specchi) Theatrical Staging (Cube of Mirrors), 1967-1975; and Pavimento/Tautologia (Floor/ Tautology), 1967.
In 1967, Fabro had a group show called Arte Povera e Im Spazio, which was a show in Genoa featuring artists such as Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, and Jannis Kounellis. There Fabro began to expand his response to unorthodox materials such as marbles and silks. Beginning in 1968, he produced a series of works that dealt with Italy, which included Italia rovesciata (Overturned Italy), 1968. This work was inspired by a geographical shape of the country or the familiar form of Italy.
"... My ‘Italys’ are bound to iconography with a very slender thread, which is the case because the image of ‘Italy’ is an image that is inferred, a graphic image. This is the reason for choosing a refraction of the form which could tend towards the infinite. Italy exist as an image which prompts someone’s recognition, as an image for someone who is some way feels connected to it and has something to do with the symbol which is its moral reduction: the reduction of the to a graphic form."
In 2013, it was widely reported that one of his works, Impronta (1962-1964), was accidentally knocked over and smashed by a journalist from Radiotelevisione svizzera, while it was on display at the Meno Uno gallery in Lugano, Switzerland. The journalist was reported to have been intoxicated.Wikipedia

European Classical Sculpture Domenico Guidi

Domenico Guidi (1625 – March 28, 1701) was a prominent Italian Baroque sculptor.
Born in Carrara, Guidi followed his uncle, the prominent sculptor, Giuliano Finelli to Naples. As the nephew of a sculptor noted for his feud with Bernini, it is not surprising that Guidi was never employed by the eminent master. Instead, when he fled Naples in 1647 during Masaniello's revolt, he joined the studio of the main competitor, Alessandro Algardi, where he remained for seven years. While in Algardi's studio, he worked on projects with another pupil, Ercole Ferrata. For example, both helped complete their master's unfinished Vision of Saint Nicholas (completed 1655) at San Nicola da Tolentino.
Guidi gained independence with Algardi's passing in 1654. He also worked closely with the French sculptor in Rome, Pierre - Etienne Monnot. Relative to sculptors of other major studios, he was prolific. His works include the Monument to Natale Rondinini in Santa Maria del Popolo (1657) and the relief over the altar of Capella di Monte di Pieta showing a Lamentation over the dead body of Christ (1667 - 76). Guidi has Algardi's competence in carving and his figures show the classical emotional detachment, but the designs are uninspired when compared to his Master. He was awarded one commission directed by Bernini, the scultping of one of the angels for the Ponte Sant'Angelo.

Classicism