2011 Paolo Icaro

The exhibition set up by Paolo Icaro at Galleria Il Ponte is entitled Su Misura (Made to Measure) because it has been created and put together based on the possibilities and ideas that these spaces give to the artist for his work.

“The concept of measuring,” writes Mauro Panzera, “has always held a special place in Icaro’s thinking… But the vicinity with which Icaro places his body directly in relation to the world, this closeness, has a dramatic impact. It is the sign that for man a space has been lost. So while measuring was a classically universal notion, it now becomes  an accident…”: “…measuring is not necessarily a standardised and objective given, but also our being-in-the-world. It is also the measurement of the relationship each one of us has with our own destiny…,” says Paolo Icaro in a conversation with Lara Conte.

The exhibition is formed of a total of three sets of works: line of equilibrium, stretched shapes and lines and natural artifice, which, despite being substantially different, are in some way complementary and generate an exhibition which is conceived of and perceived as a single sculpture.

A sculpture “…that, to use the words of Ludovico Pratesi, for the artist is a space that is measurable and therefore practicable by the spectator. The spectator perceives it in its essence of a mental place, beyond all fascination with the materials in themselves, which is instead how the Arte Povera current sees it. It is a sculpture meant as an experiential territory, unlike what the minimalists thought…”