Igor Mitoraj sculptures

[anne (bxl)]

I visited in Paris (Les Tuileries park - Le Louvre garden) this afternoon an exhibition of about 30 pieces of this polish sculptor. Such an impressive scale! and though perfectly balanced.
Pictures are not from Paris as I still don't have a digital camera but they are perfectly in size and spirit with what I saw.

[fritchie]

I visited in Paris (Les Tuileries park - Le Louvre garden) this afternoon an exhibition of about 30 pieces of this polish sculptor. Such an impressive scale! and though perfectly balanced.
Pictures are not from Paris as I still don't have a digital camera but they are perfectly in size and spirit with what I saw.

Many thanks for posting these images, Anne. I think I have seen a picture of the head, or one similar, before, but it is the standing figure which is more impressive. It's about four times the height of the people in front. That makes it about 20 feet or more tall.

And you're right about the balance and overall form. It is excellent. (By the way, the figure seems to have a head and even shoulders that are small in proportion. I’m guessing the camera was a wide-angle, maybe electronic, so that is a perspective distortion. Am I right?)

[sculptor]

Hi Anne:

Yes THANK YOU

I have spent the last 1/2 hr viewing pictures of his sculptures on-line-----by and large, I love the work-------some of the banded stuff seems a tad strained, but overall, well worth the time
America needs more parks like this who are willing to show the beauty of figurative art---------here are some more links to larger picture versions

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_3.jpg

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_7.jpg

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_11.jpg

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_12.jpg

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_26.jpg

http://www.adhikara.com/igor-mitoraj/igor_mitoraj_24.jpg

really a joy for me
thanx again

yours
rod

[anne (bxl)]

but overall, well worth the time
America needs more parks like this who are willing to show the beauty of figurative art
Neither in Europe there are sculpture parks who point out figurative sculpture, Rod. The pictures you posted are from a temporary exhibition in Lugano (Swiss) I guess, as the exhibition I saw in Paris was installed overthere for 3 to 4 weeks only!

Fritchie, I don't know about the camera angle as I didn't take the picture myself but head and shoulders in my memory were a bit larger. Pic's posted by Rod are of beter quality.

[fritchie]

Hi Anne:

Yes THANK YOU

I have spent the last 1/2 hr viewing pictures of his sculptures on-line-----by and large, I love the work-------some of the banded stuff seems a tad strained, but overall, well worth the time
America needs more parks like this who are willing to show the beauty of figurative art---------here are some more links .........

really a joy for me
thanx again

yours
rod

Rod - Many thanks for posting these image links. I do like his work, but like you, I think, find the “costuming” overlay of form-over-form a tad distracting. He HAS brought figuration to the same heroic scale as much of today’s fabricated-assembled work, and that is a very good thing.

[ExNihiloStudio]

Igor Mituraj was the featured artist in the Spring 2001 issue of Sculpture Review magazine. Along with pictures of his marble work there was an interview. Here are a few quotes from the artist:

“Greece has been a place of departure for me: Every time, I return with great emotion and the desire for discovering something, but I am quite far from discovering it all. I want to understand why those artworks were born, where they came from and why they provoke this emotion, which is so strong.”

“Frankly, pure esthetic does not interest me much. What interests me instead is understanding how the emotion of the esthetic is born.”

“Every day, I want to understand how to transform a physical thing into a mental one, how to re-elaborate an emotion in space, through hard materials.”

“I have always tried to stay away from all of those movements and those experiences that were trendy – in other words, from schools.”

“I very much like personages like Giacometti, like Bacon, all the ones outside the groups. That is my nature, I think.”

“I really like Andy Goldsworthy… His work is quite intense. I appreciate Penone, who has occasionally done works that are nearly classical…”

“I do not wish to be sucked in by modernity, which is a bit reckless, like the Internet. I am very attached to the earth, my stones are a bit like brakes.”

Interviewer: “Sometimes, you play on emphasis; and emphasis – if the artist can control it, as long as it is genuine and authentic – does not degrade into rhetoric.”

Mitoraj: “Because I trust my instinct, and not the culture I have acquired. I was born with an instinct. I strongly rejected the culture twenty years ago, and I said, ‘I don’t want to know anything anymore; I want to understand who I am.’”

The fine print at the end of the article that contains Mitoraj’s biographical information also has this quote: “Today, Mitoraj regrets the ‘lack of collaboration between sculptors and architects’”

[oddist]

Mitoraj's pieces are great!

Does anyone know the history behind the modern figurative sculpture technique of having work appear like broken greek sculpture? (heads, arms, legs missing...)

g

[sculptor]

Mitoraj's pieces are great!

Does anyone know the history behind the modern figurative sculpture technique of having work appear like broken greek sculpture? (heads, arms, legs missing...)

g

Rodin did it ...and... some of the newspaper critics of the time were unkind

[fritchie]

Mitoraj's pieces are great!

Does anyone know the history behind the modern figurative sculpture technique of having work appear like broken greek sculpture? (heads, arms, legs missing...)

g

A little off your question, but the Greeks seem to have looked at their sculpture a bit differently than we do, many centuries later. Art books often point out that they painted or “polychromed” their marbles, and the bronzes apparently were kept polished, as a sort of reflection of unaffordable gold. Many if not most were made as objects of worship, and I have seen examples where a dedicatory inscription was carved almost fully up and down both legs, if not also much of the rest of the figure.

“Sculptor” may be right that Rodin was first to use this truncating in later years. In his early years, he barely could afford workspace, and some of his early, hard-won figures partly froze and fractured. That may have given him the idea to continue in this way. The impetus, however, was accidental as far as I know. His St. John the Baptist probably is the best example

[ducksredux]

I came across Mitoraj's work in June of 1999 in Florence. He had two exhibitons there, one in the Boboli Gardens and the other in the Archaeological Museum. The show in the museum wasn't advertised in any way, and the Mitoraj pieces were interspersed with the actual Greek and Roman sculpture there. It was a funny experience wandering around the museum and spotting a lifesize "Greek" bronze that I had never seen before (there are only half a dozen surviving lifesize bronzes so imagine my surprise). The inscriptions merely said "Igor Mitoraj." I was used to seeing unhelpful inscriptions in Italy (Archaeological Museum in Naples is the worst for that) but this I felt went beyond that. The further into the museum I went the more curious the sculptures got. Some had square-shaped negative spaces in the cheek, others had their heads wrapped. Very exciting stuff. He had some smaller sculptures more directly Surreal than Classical. Lots of stuff going on in Europe that we get to see very little of in the US. Like Tinguely's work.

[Arnis]

This story is very instructive .In this case It depend of context.The Mitaraj sculptures mixs with Greek they are copies so pitty.His interviwe admitted same He want to know who is he.Therefore he should develop his owne figurative style the scale isn't so important.You can enlarge your small problems in largest scale without any success.The bands and cutting shapes are not enought .Bordel ,Roden and many athers did that.The Mitaraj art isn't so bad but He have to keep on hundreds mile of the Greek art.I mean like lokation and contexs.