Dario Ghibaudo

“Museum of Unnatural History
Room XVIII – Marvellous Creatures”

Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio // Dario Ghibaudo

“Sculpture is the pleasure of the doing within the necessity of doing, so that intuition may result in giving life to matter,” as Dario Ghibaudo tells us, then adding: “sculpture is born of error”. A paradox, certainly, but by which it means that sculpture is not simply removing, nor is it extinguished in the preparatory sketch, but rather, as claimed by Wildt: “…the sketch is not necessary” because the intimate truth is contained within the material itself. Ghibaudo concludes: “matter can never take on life if not led by the artist”. It is thus based on this principle of making it oneself that the exhibition “Sculpture is dead, long live sculpture!” was born: iron, cement, marble or porcelain materialize into fantastic creatures that inhabit the beginning and the end of the world, communicating a sense of alarm, implied by the forced fusion of species. Creatures, condemned by their own form into an infinite paradox and plunged into their existence, seem to want to challenge one’s gaze with their human animality. The cycle of works is held in Room XVIII Wonderful Creatures, of the Museum of Unnatural History, a project in progress which Dario Ghibaudo has been working on for over 25 years and collected in: Guida al Museo di Storia Innaturale, published by Umberto Allemandi.

Ph. Antonio Maniscalco