“Sculptors from around the world,” wrote Pietro Consagra, “should come to Murano and take over a glassworks.” In reality, his approach to glass, as he himself recounted, proved to be a disaster because this special material requires in-depth knowledge in order to grasp its secrets, its hidden formal possibilities and its incredible luminosity.
And yet, it has been written that, in its thousand years of history, Murano glass has never had anything to do with sculpture, ‘even though at times it has come close to its independence, expressive freedom and formal completeness.’
The invitation extended by the São Paulo Art Biennial in Brazil – this year entirely dedicated to sculpture – to Luciano Vistosi, who will represent Italy alongside Mario Ceroli and Arnaldo Pomodoro, therefore takes on particular significance. Of course, there is no such thing as a “Vistosi phenomenon” in contemporary sculpture, because today sculpture seems indifferent to the question of the materials used. Moreover, the Venetian artist has now exhibited in many countries around the world, having even achieved a sort of consecration in the extraordinary rooms of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in 1982, alongside the canvases of Giorgione and Bellini, Titian and Veronese.
And yet, the specificity of the material that Vistosi uses in the construction of his forms in space means that even formal considerations about his work take on a very particular slant.
It cannot be ignored, in fact, that the plasticiity present in Vistosi’s work manifests itself in an extremely limited space-time, entrusted to a series of perfectly planned and precise gestures that manage to fix the desired shape in the few moments during which the material is incandescent and malleable. Vistosi’s technical and factual expertise therefore plays an important role, bringing to the fore knowledge gained over many years in the family furnace, which he nevertheless employs in a direction that is completely new to Murano.
…Light plays no less an important role in his sculpture, and this is also evident in his so-called “architectural sculptures”, those totemic forms that in 1986 and 1987 inspired the Venetian artist to dream of a sort of “city of crystal”.
‘Architectural sculpture’ appears to be Vistosi’s most significant imaginative proposition (consider his design for the glass Accademia Bridge), which in this sense ranks among the most interesting experiences in contemporary research, recognising only the sculptural essence as having the ‘power’ to occupy space in a large urban agglomeration, in a modern city.
This is why Carandente states that Vistosi’s work “establishes a relationship between imagination and rigour, between mathematics and poetry”.
The complexity of an extremely complex imaginative proposal is therefore evident, which Luciano Vistosi manages to present in terms of a disarming formal “simplicity”, and perhaps it is precisely in this simplifying “purity” that the value of a sculptural quality lies, which seems to possess a sort of inner moral tension, transparent and incorruptible like glass.
Enzo De Martino