Ugo Attardi - Christopher Columbus

The work depicts the navigator Christopher Columbus, using a formally figurative language that nevertheless presents a certain degree of abstraction. Portraiture is one of the most widespread artistic expressions, especially in painting, but also in sculpture, throughout the ages. Portraiture is, first and foremost, a description of the subject depicted, an attempt to convey their physiognomy and individual characteristics truthfully and naturally. With the progressive evolution of artistic research, the physiognomic description of the subject has also been accompanied by a psychological one. Therefore, over the centuries, portraiture has also become a means of introspective investigation of the subject, their character, and their state of mind. The processes of abstraction brought about by contemporary art have contributed to this type of investigation.

This sculpture, in particular, is particularly interesting for appreciating artist Ugo Attardi's study of the human figure. For Attardi, the basis remains the reality of a concrete and tangible representation, immediately relatable to the subject. Yet the artist, at the same time, feels the need to transcend mere phenomenal reality and integrate it with his own subjectivity. For this reason, the figure of Columbus undergoes anti-naturalistic deformations, which nevertheless play a fundamental role in its expressiveness. We can see how the figure is modeled as if made of a malleable or fluid substance. In this way, the artist identifies the subject's interactions with the space surrounding it in a dynamic representation of the continuity between figure and environment. All this demonstrates Attardi's attention to Futurist poetics, albeit toned down in his own personal reworking.

Ugo Attardi, born in Sori in 1923 and died in Rome in 2006, was a painter and sculptor. After beginning his career as an abstract artist, joining the Forma 1 group, in the 1950s he turned to Expressionism, drawing inspiration from Bacon and Grosz. He participated in several editions of the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadrennial and exhibited his work in numerous solo and group shows in Italy and abroad.

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