Medardo Rosso. Pioneer of modern sculpture

Seen from our present day, the work of Medardo Rosso (Turin, 1858-Milan, 1928), which during his lifetime was scarcely recognised by those who were then at the forefront of the great transformations in contemporary art, is profoundly innovative and a precursor of the paths taken by contemporary sculpture: its themes and, above all, its expressive resources anticipate many of the aesthetic concerns that later marked the work of sculptors such as Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti, Lucio Fontana and the more contemporary Thomas Schütte.

In contrast to classically inspired sculpture, conceived as an expression of the immutable through mass and volume, Rosso dilutes the profiles of his figures in an attempt to capture the expression of emotions, in a creative process that explores time and again the differences (of light, of point of view, of materiality…) of sculpting a given figure.

Settled in Paris from 1889, he kept in close contact with intellectuals and artists (Rodin, Modigliani, Degas…) and came into close contact with photography, to the point of incorporating it as one of his working practices, but his career in the French capital was always overshadowed by the powerful influence of Rodin, to the point that on Rodin’s death Apollinaire wrote: Rosso is now, without a doubt, the greatest living sculptor. The injustice of which this prodigious sculptor has always been a victim is not being redressed.

This exhibition recovers his memory and his contribution through a wide selection of sculptures, drawings and photographs of his most experimental and innovative work.

Curator: Gloria Moure.