Greetings from Ubu wants to add a touch of cheerfulness with his colored stones, his bronze flowers painted, his mechanical parts which reproduce a nose, eyes and mouth. In Largo Pietro Micca, near the main street, you can find this bronze workThe city of San Benedetto del Tronto is dotted with contemporary sculptures which draw inspiration not necessarily from real events or figures, but aim to give perceptions to the spectator to symbolize values and themes of universal scope. With these connotations a real open-air art gallery which characterizes the city center, as well as the heart of the city.
Where the character of Ubu takes shape
Ubu is a fictional character, a great game. Its presence is intended to offer a welcome greeting to those who stroll through that busy and transient alley. Ubu was born in a high school and was inspired by a physics professor, Félix Hébert, teased by students for his somewhat unusual appearance. A student, Alfred Jarry, he makes it his source of inspiration for student parodies, until the character begins to have success. It becomes the central theme of satirical comedies, originally conceived as puppet shows, which hit the stupidity and violence of social conventions.
The character himself becomes the symbol of human baseness and embodies both foolishness and the most ignoble brutalityUbu's story and attitude are transformed by the various artists who treat him: from grotesque and always tyrant, to prisoner and mad anarchist. In Italy, Ubu finds an artist who has further investigated his meanings and symbolic value, proceeding "from the general to the particular", namely Henry Baj.
The artist Enrico Baj
Enrico Baj, known primarily as a painter, passed away recently in 2003. An Italian portraitist and sculptor, he is considered one of Italy's most important artists. He attended the Brera Academy, later graduating in Law, and forged important relationships abroad. In addition to being an essayist and polemicist, verve explosive, he is also a skilled engraver: he has worked on the texts of ancient and contemporary poets and writers, accompanying the books with prints and multiples. He developed a strong criticism of contemporaneity in an imaginary dominated by thanks to , the only style that according to the artist is able to represent today's culture. He began to deal with tribal masks and grotesque totems who wanted to express a modern primitivism by recycling everyday objects. He exhibited "hydraulic" works: taps, pipes, siphons are applied to small sculptures as a sort of collage., referring to the projects of the great Leonardo da VinciThe artist used his most playful, grotesque and childish representations to to comment, with wit and irony, theto Italian society in the second half of the twentieth century.
Next to the sculpture of Ubu in Largo Micca there is the miniature of the sculpture itself, a small reproduction to allow the blind (and visually impaired) people to be able to touch and get a feel for the work. The fascination and symbolic power of that strange figure, conceived as a unique figure and charged with multifaceted meanings, remains undeniable.
Thanks for the cover image: flickr.com
