A MARCO
Introduction
The project ‘To Marco’ is a very personal proposal I have realised, in which I make a conceptual self-portrait by forming, like a stone thrown on the water, a series of concentric circles encompassing myself, my family and my love for my city: Venice. These circles navigate from the inside to the outside of a reality that I have reinterpreted through geometry and the conceptual and emotional bond that intertwines me with the final work. My passion for cubism has marked my artistic journey. Like the Cubists did over a century ago, I open up perspective and play with it, breaking it down and recomposing it in an order that erases the distinction between objects and the space around them.
To consolidate my practice and bring it back to contemporaneity, I started with studies at the Louvre, where I fell in love with Antonio Canova’s sculptural masterpiece ‘Amore e Psyche’. Subsequently, I deepened my research in Possagno in the artist’s gallery of plaster casts, where I found historical, almost magical connections between the author of Amore e Psyche and the quadriga di San Marco, the bronze sculpture so beloved by my father Marco. It was thanks to Canova that, on 13 December 1815, the bronze horses looted by Napoleon Bonaparte could finally return to Venice.
Fascinated by the idea of linking Cubism to Venetian history, I select a series of historical monuments and reinterpret them in the same language, building a connection between the history of Venice and the French avant-garde. I create a logical thread between the city and my artistic passion.
Project
The project starts with the creation of five polymer sculptures, coated in pure gold, and one glass sculpture, made by lost wax, all lit by LED light. The effect I created is an explosion of light that enhances the volumes and details of each piece. Each piece represents a phase of my life. Gold is the lowest common denominator between my father Marco’s art and glass, which represents the link between my city and my artistic life. The idea that guides me is to create an artistic itinerary in which each work can be admired in its context, inserting and linking it to the city I love.
A MARCO
To Marco, my father. I have always loved looking at these golden bronze horses, on the facade of Saint Mark’s Basilica. As a child, when I first saw them for the first time, I thought they could have flying up there. My father told me that actually they flew for far far away.At home we had this bronze and marble made model, which was made by his very good friend Mario Valese.My father Marco had a galvanic lab and worked until Saturday night.So on weekends, when he took us to the beach, he all take us with the company car which was loaded with gold and other metals to be delivered to his customers. We were four brothers and we all do remember this scent of gold leaf that to us meant happiness and joy on our Sundays trips to the sea.
Cubist sculpture, polymer and pure gold.
Laser-cut and powder-coated steel base.
LED lighting.
L 32 x W 16 x H 20 cm
CAPTAIN
Marco often took me to see the Captain; his laboratory was just a few hundred meters away. He explained that this knight was not Venetian but had defended our city countless times.
That sculpture represented a great man who had been deceived by the Venetians. The beautiful equestrian statue was meant to stand in Piazza San Marco.
Rogat ut dignetur face fieri imaginem…Super equo brondeo et ipsam imagine ponere superplatea S. Marci (I ask that you deign to make an image on a bronze horse and place the image itself in St. Mark’s Square).
Despite his great services to Venice from 1454 until his death in 1475, during which he also served as Commander-General of the army of the Serenissima, his wish was never respected. The Venetians, seeking a legally unassailable subterfuge, avoided placing thestatue—especially of a non-Venetian—in their most beautiful square. In the end,Verrocchio’s work was placed at San Marco, but not where Colleoni had wanted, before the Basilica. Instead, it was placed in front of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, now facingthe current civil hospital of Venice.
Dal Bon’s provocation is to give Colleoni justice by bringing him back to Piazza San Marco, as he rightfully deserves.
Cubist sculpture, polymer and pure gold.
Laser-cut and powder-coated steel base.
LED lighting.
L 34 x W 18 x H 34 cm
VENETIAN VIRTUES
It is not only a beautiful bronze gate, it is much more than a work of art.
It represents the four virtues that in the Venice of eighteen century had to possess to be a citizen Venetian:
Vigilance, Freedom, Government and Happiness
Murano glass sculpture made by lost wax.
Base in steel and pure gold.
LED lighting.
L 35 x W 25 x H 20 cm
FOSCARINA
Foscarina is my daughter, the niece of Marco, but also the allegory of the Serenissima.
Foscarina is the dogaressa who sits on the Leo, which is her zodiac sign and the symbol of the city of Venice.
She is the strong woman who holds the fruits necessary for life and the scepter of command. The woman who will rule the future of my world.
Cubist sculpture, polymer and pure gold.
Laser-cut and powder-coated steel base.
LED lighting.
L 36 x W 28 x H 39 cm