Antonio Tropiano, 47 years old, is a well-known sculptor of St. Catherine Ionian (Catanzaro) who with his art brings the name of Calabria high in Italy and abroad. After studying between Bologna and Florence, he continued his research in the field of medieval and renaissance philology. He then collaborates with a well-known publishing house as an essayist on the history of art and humanistic literature. Since he was a boy, he has shown a predilection for plastic creation and for the natural versatility of wood, which are well reconciled in sculpture. In 2015, at the invitation of Vittorio Sgarbi, he took part in the Pro Biennale of Venice. His art contains a world of words and sensations, a real mutation of things into something else. To get to know the artist better and the profound meaning inherent in his creations, we met him. This interview ensued, and was carried out exclusively for italiani.it.
Antonio, chose to devote himself to sculpture after teaching medieval philology. How did this transition happen?
«Actually there was no transition: in the sense that there is no solution of continuity between these two moments of my life. I continued to sculpt, albeit in a private and very contained way, even during my years of teaching. My need to learn the shape of things from matter was so pressing at a certain point that, as circumstances changed, I decided to indulge an inevitable fate by dedicating myself entirely to sculpture. And then the philologist and the sculptor work on the same subject: error».
He began to love this art form at a very young age thanks also to his grandfather who was a cabinet maker.
«My grandfather died before my mother got married, so I didn't have the opportunity to learn directly from him those workshop secrets that would certainly have made my work easier. However, I believe that from the first time I used his tools I felt a sort of deference, an unfathomable need to deserve that privilege by confessing it to the fiber of the wood. I felt I had to live up to an idea, his".
How is a sculpture born?
«That's what I ask myself every time I finish one. In reality I think I sculpt out of urgency: in the sense that I try not to get overwhelmed by this inescapable need to have a say, to provide the expression of one's individuality, which seems to be inherent in this season of the world. Thus I find myself observing phenomena for which I trace an etiology by putting together apparently dissimilar and irreconcilable aspects and pieces, but which instead reveal the urgency of a new perspective».
Why do you prefer linden wood to create your works?
“I have no predilection for one essence or the other. Certainly linden or walnut wood (but also cherry, maple, ebony, etc.) lend themselves very well to carving and to often accommodate complex figures with textures that are difficult to execute. Furthermore, they have a texture of veins that does not create optical distortion when you look at them».
Among his sculptures known "fragments" of bodies and limbs. What do they represent?
«I am attracted by the metamorphic force of the fragment, of the splinter. In my opinion, it is there that the mutation of one thing and its idea into another takes place; there that the shape of an object or a body acquires the value of the symbol through its own material».
He is also an essay writer. What is the connection between his writing and his sculptural works?
“As many as you can imagine, and many more. I have dedicated my life to words and I believe that naming things is mankind's greatest invention. It is from the words that I start when I give way to a sculpture: in the interstices of the term, in fact, I trace that modulation of meanings, that conceptual connective tissue that informs the chosen figure».
Which of them expresses your thoughts better than the others?
"Definitely the one I haven't done yet."
What is "Adele's core", his penultimate, extraordinary, "creature"?
Adele Abbruzzese. That was how she called herself a young Ciociara who had the fate of becoming one of the favorite models of Rodin. In fact, he portrayed her in many of her works; and in particular he modeled her in clay (and then in plaster) in a small sculpture which is now in her museum in Paris entitled "The torso of Adele". Absolutely one of the ones I'm closest to. At that time the master was working on the "Gate of Hell", and he used Adele to portray the figure of Eve. At the same time Adele had become pregnant by a young shop boy and in her pregnant state he found many inconveniences posing nude in Meudon's cold studio in the middle of winter.
So she did what every mother would do driven by concern for her own child, she ran away and was never seen again. The master fell into a state of frustration because the figure he was making now looked too much like Adele to start over. He resolved to relegate it to a corner and looking at it after weeks, neglected there, he realized that the unfinished portion had the same expressive power as the one defined in the figure. Thus was born the "unfinished" of Rodin, one of the greatest revolutions of sculpture of all time. Which in truth had been caused by Adele: well, I wanted to pay homage to this as to a thousand other cases in which the great intuitions were produced in a fortuitous way and through the contribution of minds whose history has intended not to retain the memory".
What connection does he have with his native land?
«I came back after a long time because I felt the need to look at things upside down. My sculpture needs a reversal of perspective, an inversion of gaze and a place where things change slowly, because the time that inhabits it is in no hurry: that is the right place to sculpt».
What is the place where you prefer to take refuge to give vent to your art?
"This from which I answer you."
He has exhibited in important international galleries and museums. Where would you like to go?
"To the next glass of red."
(Photo courtesy of Antonio Tropiano)
