OBÉLISQUE DÉSINTÉGRÉ
Francesco Marino Di Teana
The Transfiguration Of Metal
Philippe Hiquily, Francesco Marino Di Teana
06/04/2023 - 28/05/2023
Space N°4, Space 3 bis
Opening 6 April 2023 For the upcoming exhibition, Galerie LOFT is honoring two artists who have profoundly upset the codes of sculpture by revolutionizing the practice of metal sculpture and are today among the greatest figures of contemporary sculpture in France.
For the upcoming exhibition, Galerie LOFT is honoring two artists who have profoundly upset the codes of sculpture by revolutionizing the practice of metal sculpture and are today among the greatest figures of contemporary sculpture in France.
They have each with their own singularity (the playful movement and eroticism for Hiquily and the architectural construction for Marino di Teana) tamed the raw metal (often recycling) which they knew how to tame with their extraordinary technical qualities. They are part of this first generation of artists whose work on iron, brass or steel (hammered, forged, welded, polished or patinated, etc.), enabled metal sculpture to obtain their true letters of nobility and to pave the way for new generations of sculptors such as Bernard Venet or Richard Serra.
It is with a certain emotion and a great deal of pride that Galerie LOFT was able to produce the two catalogs raisonnés retracing the life and work of these two artists. Each book, produced over more than six years, presents the evolution of the career and works of these two men with exceptional destinies. Through their unshakeable desire to maintain total creative independence without ever giving in to fashion effects or the system, they have thus been able to produce rich and complex works, sometimes experimental or innovative, often monumental, which have marked the urban landscape (in particular by the realization of many monumental sculpture projects in France as part of the 1% but also abroad) and enriched many public and private collections around the world.
Artists
Philippe Hiquily
Born in Montmartre in 1925, Philippe Hiquily is a very singular artist, sculptor, but also creator of furniture, jewellery, etchings and experimental kinetic and electronic works. The main axis of his work is to play with shapes and balance but also the “coupling” of sculptures and objects. May they be in iron, brass or steel there are always principles behind his sculptures, art must be funny, playful and esthetical. Movements, curves and materials are as many ways to give life to metal that is metamorphosed in an erotic object. From New York to Paris, museums of tribal art to the salon of French aristocracy, this lover of women, protégé of Germaine Richier, friend of Arman, César, Jodorowsky or Alain Jouffroy, this very convivial and great cigar lover, Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters, has always known, throughout his life, how to completely overwhelm our view of sculpture.
Francesco Marino Di Teana
Born amongst a family of peasants, Francesco Marino di Teana was successively a shepherd, a mason in Italy (Teana), site foreman, architect and student at the Art University of Argentina before moving to Paris in 1953. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, poet and philosopher and becomes one of the major sculptors of the 20th with his theories on “triunitarian” logic and architectural sculpture. Represented for more than 20 years by the mythical Denise René gallery and winner of prestigious artistic prizes, he was acclaimed by some of the greatest creators and art critics of his time. Precursor of the Monumenta’s at the Grand Palais with the exhibition of his monumental fountains (9 m high for 16 long), that he made with Saint-Gobain (Glass and industrial materials company), he has raised more than 40 monumental sculptures throughout France, one being the highest iron sculpture in Europe, “Liberté“ (Liberty), that is 20 meters high (at Fontenay-sous-bois). His lifetime work was the object of a retrospective in 1975 at the Paris Museum of Modern Arts, he represented Argentina at the Venice biennial of 1982, and won the academy of fine arts prize in 2009.