2017 Catalogue Archive

As both a sculptor and a maker of adornment, Italian artist Bruno Martinazzi is a master of the fragmented body part. Since the late 1960s, when he began to focus on the eye, mouth, hand, fingers and feet as a way to grasp the essential facts of life and existence in a time of social and political turmoil, the human body has been a constant subject in his work. Sometimes it is sensual and erotic (the belly, the buttocks, the legs) and sometimes political and social (the fist, the fingers). Piede, which means ‘foot’ in English, tells the story of Icarus, the young man with wings of wax and feathers who flew too close to the sun and plunged to his death in the ocean. The pad of his foot, with its beautifully crafted toes, is the last thing we see as Icarus disappears under the waves. Martinazzi is a senior figure in the world of contemporary adornment, widely acknowledged for his commitment to classical ideals, and his investigation of recurring themes of mythology and philosophy through the human body. A 2014 retrospective exhibition of his work at the Pinacoteca Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin celebrated his 90th birthday, and his sculpture and adornment has been acquired by public and private collections around the world.