Art for Public Places - Nicola Zamboni

In May 2013, I met the Italian sculptor duo, Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. Nicola believes in art for public spaces rather than art for rich individuals or for museums. Here are some excerpts of our conversation.

Sunil: Nicola lets start with you. Please tell me about how did you decide to become a sculptor and which experiences shaped you as an artist?

Nicola: From the childhood I was interested in sculpture and painting. My father, who was a factory worker, wanted me to become an accountant, so I did go to the accountancy school, but I was not good at studies. At the time of my final exam, the president of the commission was a person who knew me, said that we shall pass you but you have to promise us two things - one that you will make a bust of Marconi (our school was called named after him) for the school and second, you will never work as an accountant!

Actually I did work briefly as an accountant, but after a few months, the owner told me that it would be better for me to do something else. So I went to the art academy but I did not finish it. During the third year of art college, I went to UK at Henry Moore's house for one month and when I came back to Bologna, I did not want to study any more. At the school we had a good teacher, prof. Ghirmandi, he asked me to become his assistant. Since then I have spent all my life as a sculptor.

Today I find persons who have no preparation or experience, but after 2 days of art work they want to be recognised as artists or sculptors!

Sunil: So you think that formal art training is important for an artist?

Nicola: I think that you need to have talent as an artist but you also need to work hard and practice your skills. With a lot of hard work and discipline, even with little talent you can reach good results. Others can reach good results because they have a lot of talent though they do not have enough discipline. But generally speaking, you need a little talent and a lot of discipline and hard work to be a good artist.

Sunil: I have seen your works in terracotta, stone and metal - which is your favourite material?

Nicola: I like all the different materials, each has its own characteristics that are unique and that you have learn to understand and discover. My desire was to create works that can be displayed in public spaces, especially in spaces of the marginalised people and peripheries, so I always try to adapt my working materials to the economic possibilities of those who can commission my work. I also need to think of the place where the art will be displayed, in selecting the materials. For example, for the sculptures in Parco Pasolini in Pilastro area of Bologna, they did not have lot of money and the work was huge. I was supposed to create sculptures of a long line of persons going to the theatre spread over 500 meters, so I used mostly cement and a little stone. I made persons without faces, without features, who as they reach the theatre acquire features and become full persons. Those sculptures also included a theatre with seats, but 5-6 years ago the municipality decided to cover that part of my work and now it is gone.

Sometimes, vandals can deface your work in public spaces, but usually it is the institutions that suddenly decide to destroy art in public places.

Sunil: Why did you choose to make art for public spaces?

Nicola: I don't like the idea of rich persons keeping my art hidden away where no one looks at it, except may be for their Dobermans, who piss on it regularly in their gardens, and only once in a while some person will look at it. In the big museums, you find all kinds of art works put together, you have to look at them all at one time, one after another. On the other hand, the art, especially sculptures, need to interact with the people and the city spaces, it is part of the city life. Society needs to look at the art and say what do they think of it. Society needs to tell the artist what it appreciates in art, there should be a dialogue between the artist and the city. So every space, every context, needs it own style of art and this is a challenge for the artist - you need to think of the spaces and find artistic idea for that space, rather than having your own style of art that you put up every where.

Sunil: If you look backwards on your works, do you see some kind of evolution?

Nicola: When I had come back to Bologna after staying with Henry Moore, I was in love with him and for some time, all my works resembled his. I feel that we are always influenced by works of others, there is nothing that comes out of no where, you always find inspirations in the life around you and in the works of others. Thus, started a period of experimentation for me. For one year, I asked a construction company to work with them. During that one year, I was using their materials - stones, cement, wood, anything that caught my fancy, and I worked on it. So I got my materials and in exchange they got all my art works and these were put up in different parts of Bologna and San Lazzaro (suburb of Bologna). During that year I felt that contemporary art was not the right style for Bologna - after a few years, the contemporary sculptures do not fit in the city spaces any more. So I turned towards more classical figures for my sculptures.

Many of those sculptures in public spaces, are now in a bad condition, but that is the risk of making public works, to be a street artist is not easy for your art. In a museum, your art is safe and people take care of it. Destruction of my art work is part of their life cycles. I accept it. However when institutions, deliberately destroy my art, that hurts me. In Via Larga in Bologna, near the mall, I had built about 120 sculptures. There were sculptures of some well known people among them. However, some 7-8 years ago, they destroyed all of them and that hurt me. Only some pictures remain of that monumental work.

Sunil: Among all your works, do you feel especially close to some specific work?

Nicola: The group of bronze sculptures that I am making now with Sara, "The Humanity" that is very close to my heart. It is an allegory for modern times. It has figures of those who are killing others, destroying things, destroying their animals. It also has those who are trying to run away, to escape with their miserly belongings and their dreams.

Sunil: When I had seen the exhibition of "The Humanity", I had thought that it represented a medieval war.

Nicola: It is an allegory about modern times but I chose medieval style for its representation since warriors with their medieval dresses and armors express strongly the differences between those who kill and the other simple persons. If I had made them with modern clothes, it was more difficult to express this concept. These persons hide their faces behind armors, masks and shields, so that they are no longer persons, but they turn into things. That mask and armor can mean a bank account, some secret group, some power - so those sculptures are not about a medieval war, rather medieval war is a symbolism for what is happening in the world today.

Like there are the animals in those sculptures, they have been pulled into this war, and they are also the unfortunate victims of this war. To show all this, I decided to express myself through an allegory. It is not only men who are destroyers, there also some women also, dressed as warriors in this work.

Sunil: And the women covered with veils where you can see only their eyes?

Sara: They are part of the victims, those who are trying to escape this war, the refugees.

Nicola: Once we went for holidays at a seaside resort in the middle east. There were American and German women who were walking around in bikini and then there were local women, covered from head to feet.

Sara: These two very contrasting ways of dressing brought together in one place, it was a strange and powerful sight. A very strange kind of fashion show.

Nicola: I liked it very much, this contrasting visual, though I must say that I believe in the freedom of choice, that people must be able to choose what they wish to wear. At the same time, I think that it is worse when people forget their customs and become homogenized. For example on the TV to see the leader of China dressed exactly like the leader of USA or France, that seems so strange to me!

Sara: Even in Africa, where traditions are lost and a lot of persons dress like westerners, though fortunately there are some people who still wear their traditional dresses.

Nicola: There are some paintings from Venice from the 15th century, where you can see persons from different parts of the world - the Arabs, the Jews, the Indians, each with their own way of dressing. It is so beautiful. I think that differences of costumes is a beautiful richness of our humanity, providing that people have a choice in deciding what they wish to wear and are not forced to do it in a certain way.

Sunil: This opera "The Humanity" how do you see it, already complete or you still making new sculptures for it?

Nicola: As long as I will have strength in my body, I will keep on making new sculptures to add to the Humanity. However, now I want to focus only on making the sculptures of persons who are the victims of this war, who are trying to run away to save their lives and livelihoods. These sculptures of "The Humanity" have already been to four exhibitions - first in Modena, then in Arezzo, then in Accursio palace in Bologna, then in Piazza dell'Unità in Bologna.

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Read the first 2 Parts of this Post

Part 1: An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Part 2: Meet the artist & sculptor Sara Bolzani

Sara Bolzani: Inspired by India

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and talk to them about their art. This post is about their visits to India and how India has inspired some of Sara's sculptures.

Nicola and Sara live in Sala Bolognese, a small rural town to the north of Bologna. In the middle of the farm houses, their house also seems like a usual farm house.

When we reached their home, Nicola was waiting for us in his studio on the ground floor. He took us up to the first floor where they live and where Sara was also waiting for us. They had just been in India at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and then had been to visit Varanasi. The visit had had a strong impact on them and ideas of India had influenced Sara's recent art works. So our conversations started with India.

Here are some excerpts from this conversation:

Sara: My series on sculptures of women started from a journey to India, more than 10 years ago, when we had gone to Rajasthan. I like very much the way women wear sari in India.

Nicola: In India I thought that Sara looked so Indian and we met one person who was so much like her brother.

Sara: In India my skin had become darker and many people thought that I was an Indian so they spoke to me in Hindi. I really wanted us to stay on in India for a longer period and work with some Indian artists, but we had no contacts with any artists there. I am also interested in learning more about Hindu mythology because I feel that can be an inspiration for my work. I was told about the different gods and how each god and goddess is linked to an animal, I want to explore this relationship. I need to find some easy to understand book. I tried with Bhagvad Geeta but it is just too difficult and it does not talk about the different gods. I have done some work on Greek mythological figures like Antigone. I like expressing those stories through my sculptures.

Sunil: In Bologna, there is a significant Bengali community and they organise Durga Puja every year at Centro Zonarelli, so that can be an opportunity for you to observe some of the Hindu mythologies directly rather than reading about them in books. That sculpture (pointing to a sculpture in the room) with the tiger and the woman seems inspired by the figure of Durga in Hindu mythology.

Sara: Actually that sculpture is linked to a daytime dream that I had many years ago. It was a vivid dream, very strong and very emotional. I was going from house to Milan and I was in a hurry, suddenly I felt as I had turned into a tiger, and I was running on four legs. It was such a powerful feeling. I have tried to express that feeling in this sculpture of the tiger and the woman.

I made it three years ago and a person who collects our works wanted it but for a long time I did not want to see it, I felt that it was very personal. In the end, I made a copy of those sculptures and sold it. Then another collector bought only the woman, so I copied the woman's sculpture. Now another collector wants both of them, so I have to make a copy of both the figures because I always want this sculpture with me to remind me of that vivid dream.

However, my last work has been inspired from India. I had seen a woman with a plate in her hand and I thought that it was a wonderful inspiration for a sculpture. So after coming back from the Kumbh mela trip, I have made this woman with a plate in her hand. I finished it last week and now it is being exhibited in a church.

Here are some images of Sara's works including the woman with the tiger and two of her India inspired works.

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Read More About Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzoni

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Working together Nicola and Sara

Castelvetrano and the Greek ruins of Selinunte (2)

The Greek empire predates the Roman empire and is considered as the beginning of the western civilisation. Around 700 BC, Greeks colonised parts of the Sicily island in the south of Italy. This post is about the ruins of that Greek empire in a place called Selinunte, near the city of Castelvetrano.

South West part of Asia (Middle east), neighbouring Africa and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea played an important role in the beginning of human development with Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian civilisations. The first agricultural societies and skills like writing developed in this part of the world. These civilisations had close contacts with civilisations developing in the east, especially in India and China.

The rise and fall of the Greek civilisation was part of this process. The Greek empire began in 800 BC and lasted for about 3 centuries, being replaced by the Persian Achemenid empire. Greeks gained ascendence once again with Alexander in the fourth century BC, who extended his empire to the western boundaries of India. However soon after Alexander, the Roman empire began to dominate this region.

Selinunte in western part of Sicily holds some magnificent signs of the early Greek Empire, that had a strong influence on the Romans, defining their cultural, religious and aesthetic ideas. When Roman empire grew into northern and eastern Europe, it took those Greek ideas to all its new colonies, influencing their cultural ideas. Thus Greek civilisation is considered as the mother of the Western civilisation and the basis of the "classical" culture.

Greeks in Selinunte

The first Greek colonies in eastern Sicily came up in the eighth century BC. Over the seventh century BC, many colonies extended towards the west. Selinunte, near the Selinus river (called so because of wild celery growing there and in Greek, celery is called "selinon") , became one of the biggest Greek cities in Western parts of the island.

However, across the sea in what is now Tunis, Punic groups (of Phoenician origins) had established the Carthage empire and there were frequent fights between the Sicilian Greeks and the Carthage. Around fifth century BC as the power of the Greek empire waned, Punics occupied and destroyed Selinunte. In second centry BC, Carthage was occupied and destroyed by Romans and thus, Selinunte was definitely abandoned.

The remaining magnificent buildings of Selinunte were destroyed by an earthquake sometime around seventh-ninth century AD. In 20th century, a few of the buildings of Selinunte have been reconstructed using the stones from the ruins.

A Visit to Selinunte

While in Castelvetrano, one morning I was free for a couple of hours, so I asked my friend Piero to accompany me to Selinunte, about 12 km from Castelvetrano. Piero has a house in Selinunte and was happy to oblige me.

Selinunte archaeological area is huge and requires at least a day for a proper visit. In the couple of hours we had, a full visit was not possible. Thus we limited our visit to the temple and ruins at the eastern hill and then to some parts of the Acropolis. Our walking tour is shown in red in the map below.

City of Selinunte

Selinunte is a seaside town where many of my friends in Castelvetrano had their holiday homes, where they usually spend some months in the summer. Here is glimpse of the Marinella part of Selinunte houses close to the sea.

Eastern Hill of Selinunte Archaeological Park

The main city of 7th century BC Selinunte was in the south, closer to the seaside, at the Acropolis. However, some important temples and buildings were built at the Eastern hill. One such building, the Temple of Hera, has been rebuilt partially and gives an idea of the way this place must have looked before its destruction.

Similar to the Parthenon in Athens, the temple is built on a raised rectangular platform with stairs all around it. It is surrounded by 16 columns on the longer sides and 4 central columns on the short sides. The columns are Doric - this means, they stand flat on the pavement without a separate base and the sides have 20 parallel grooves. At the top, the columns are composed of three elements - the smooth and flared capital connected to the square Abacus on which rests a horizontal beam (architrave).

Next to the temple there are other ruins where you can see an upside down flared capital and a square abacus, that shows that the two parts were joined, cut from the same rock. The round stones used for the columns and the capital have square holes, for connecting them to other stones of the column with the help of iron.

The stones are from a lime rock quarry situated at Cusa, 13 km away. It is humbling to think of all the work that must have gone into cutting these stones from the rocks, shaping them, making grooves in them and then fixing them one over another.

Going to Acropolis

The Greeks made their cities at the top of the hills and thus these are called Acropolis (high cities). The walk from the eastern hill to the south towards the sea, was very pleasant. I was struck by the colours of the countryside where the dry straw coloured high grass contrasted with the green hills.

As we reached the bottom of the hill, we crossed the Cottone river, that looked like a small canal rather than a proper river. Another bridge near by was over some dry land. Perhaps the main river was dry now and just a canal is enough to carry all the river water? According to the map, nearby was the old harbour of the Greeks.

The climb towards Acropolis brought us to the walls of the old city that had managed to survive the earthquake.

Acropolis

The ruins in the Acropolis are spread over a huge area and include different temples, roads, gates and houses. We were already getting late so it was a hurried visit to some of the buildings in this area.

On one side, we could see the sea and the houses of Salinunte in the distance. Going down on that hill would have brought us to the Salinus river and to the ruins of Malaphorus temple on a hill. But there was not enough time to do that visit.

On our way back, we passed some Punic tombs in raised up stone graves. I was surprised to see plants of Aloe Vera in this area, that I had seen in Cape Town in South Africa. Perhaps the two places share similar environmental conditions!

Then it was time for us to rush back as I was getting late for my meeting. It was a cold and rainy day and there were hardly any other tourists, so the ruins seemed even more desolate and beautiful.

To close this brief walking tour of Greek ruins of Salinunte, here is another image of the beautiful temple of Hera on the Eastern hill.

If you are ever in Sicily, think of visiting Selinunte! It is worth a visit.

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Meet the artists - Introduction to Nicola and Sara

For a long time, I did not understand the links between the artists and their art. I mean, I knew the artists responsible for their works, but I didn't understand the importance of learning about their lives for a better appreciation of their art!

Once I understood that link, I realized that artists have their own contexts, relationships and personalities that influence the decisions they make when they work on their art. So now when I like a piece of art, I want to learn more about the artist who made it and often I find that it gives me new insights into their art. This changes my appreciation of that art, it makes it deeper and more satisfying.

This post is about two of my my favourite Italian sculptors - Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. In May 2013, I went to meet them at their home in Sala Bolognese, not very far from Bologna (Italy). I am planning three posts regarding this meeting - this first post is about how I discovered their art. The remaining two posts will be about the discussions with them, where they talk about their art and give a glimpse into their lives.

The Humanity Exhibition

I first discovered the works of Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani at their joint exhibition called "The Humanity" in 2011. This exhibition was held in the inner courtyard of the Accursio Palace in the city centre of Bologna. This is a square-shaped space surrounded by medieval buildings that is commonly used for art exhibitions.

The exhibition was composed of different human-size figures in bronze, with medieval soldiers on horses, scenes of violence, women running away with their children in their arms and their belongings on their heads, horses falling down and persons dying, soldiers raping and abducting women. I was mesmerized by this exhibition and went back to look at it a couple of times.

On one hand, I felt that some of the middle-eastern figures of this exhibition, such as the women covered in black chadors, were stereotypes. On the other hand, the unmistakable vitality of the figures had a strong emotional impact on me.

One of my favourite figures in this exhibition was that of a thoughtful angel waiting near a dying horse and a soldier.

The 12 women of Villa Spada

A few months after the Humanity exhibition, I went to visit the textile museum of Bologna hosted in a 16th century building called Villa Spada. This villa had an Italian garden on a hill - a garden where plants are made to form geometric shapes, which had some medieval sculptures that were damaged. In their place, they had put 12 terracotta statues of women, each woman representing one month of a year.

I fell in love with those statues and felt that they were among the most beautiful pieces of sculpture that I had ever seen. Some time later, I wrote a blog post about that building and about its terracotta statues, in which I expressed my love for those statues and wondered who was the artist behind them?

A few months later, some one from Villa Spada, perhaps its owner, wrote back on my blog, specifying that the statues were the work of Nicola Zamboni. I immediately remembered Nicola's name from the Humanity exhibition. I was impressed by the fact that Nicola seemed equally good with bronze as with terracotta.

The Strange People of Pilastro Park

In the beginning of 2013, I visited a park located in the Pilastro area of Bologna. The park had some strange sculptures - of people walking from one corner of the park towards its centre, where they had an open air theatre. The people were without faces near the corner of the park and as they came near the theatre, their faces became more defined.

Looking for Nicola Zamboni

I was a little intrigued by those sculptures in the park. They were completely unlike any other sculptures that I had seen.

One day I did an internet search to learn more about those sculptures and found that they were also the work of Nicola Zamboni. So finally I decided that it was time for me to search for Nicola and try to meet them.

A search on internet helped me to find Nicola's webpage and contact, so I called him. When I told him that I was from India and I wanted to meet him, suddenly I felt his voice change - he was immediately warm and enthusiastic about the idea of my visit to meet him.

"It must be destiny that you searched for us, because we have been thinking and talking so much about India these last few months", he gushed.

Later when I went to visit him, I discovered the reason for his enthusiasm! About this, you can read more in the next post about Nicola and Sara.

In the mean time you can admire this sculpture of Nicola Zamboni from Villa Spada, that I love so much. I think that the woman of this sculpture is disabled, a woman without her right arm, but I am not sure about it. Her face expresses so much tenderness! For tourists coming to Bologna, I always tell them that they should not miss a visit to Villa Spada - these sculptures should be a must for all art lovers visiting Bologna!

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Read More About Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Sara Bolzoni

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Working together Sara Bolzoni & Nicola Zamboni 

Castelvetrano and the Greek ruins of Selinunte (1)

Castelvetrano is a small town in the province of Trapani at the western tip of Sicily island in the south of Italy. It is famous for the Greek ruins from 6th century BC at Selinunte. Recently I was in Castelvetrano. This first part of my Castelvetrano diary focuses on the city, while the second part will focus on the Greek ruins of Selinunte.

I saw this pictorial map of Sicily island (image above) at a school in Castelvetrano. The city of Castelvetrano is located near the western tip of the island (where it shows the Greek ruins of Selinunte on the left, just below the windmill).

Chiesa Madre and the centre of Castelvetrano

When I had first heard of Castelvetrano, I had imagined it as the town with a "glass castle" (Castel = castle and Vetro = Glass). However, friends explained that the name of the city probably came from a settlement of ancient military veterans, a "castle of veterans".

The first historical records of Castelvetrano date back to thirteenth century when the dukes of Angioini from west of France gave this area to Tagliavia  (Aragon) family.

The city was famous for its vineyards and olive cultivation. The centre of the city is the Garibaldi square and the nearby Aragona -Tagliavia square. Garibaldi square has the Chiesa Madre (Mother Church) from 1520 AD, built at the site of an older church. Inside the church, the portion around the altar is richly decorated with frescoes, statues and plaster-of-Paris works.

The chapel on the right side of the Mother church, has stairs going down to the crypts below, where I found a curious structure that I had never seen before - a place for preparing mummification or drying of the dead bodies. The crypt room cut into the rock has rows of "chairs", each chair with a hole in the centre, a little like chamber-pots or toilets. These rows are marked as "reserved for the clergy", "for the superiors of the church" and "for noble families". I was told that the bodies of the dead persons were put there so that they could "expel their liquids" and become dry for the burial or mummification.

This kind of burial practices could have been linked to ideas about the "day of judgement" and that "dead people will come alive on that day".

It seems as if this place had been in use till relatively recently. It had a kind of morbid fascination for me! I could imagine some kind of a horror film being shot there with smelly rows of dead bodies sitting there and "expelling their liquids"! (image below).

On the side of the street in front of the Mother Church is the wonderful "Fountain of the Nymph" built in 1615 AD by Orazio Nigrone. It provided public water to the people living around that area. The water was brought to the fountain by an aqueduct built by Bigini. The water gurgling out of a vase held by a nymph at the top of the fountain, fell down in three levels of trays underneath the nymph. However, now the fountain seemed to be dry.

Close to the chiesa Madre, on one side of the Aragon-Tagliavia square is the family home of Aragons (Palazzo Pignatelli) that now holds the municipal offices.

Other places of interest

Other important places of interest in this area are the monument to Prof. Giovanni Gentile credited with the educational reforms in Italy after the first world war in 1920.

Close to the Gentile monument is the ancient Purgatory church (Chiesa del Purgatorio) built in 1642 AD at the site of another more ancient church. It is now used as an auditorium.

Finally there is Selinus theatre, built in late nineteenth century in neo-classical style with stairs in the front and an entrance hall with Doric columns. The entrance hosts a sculpture of children by Mario Rutelli (brought here from another local villa) as well as busts of two famous Italian literary figures -  Dante and Pirandello.

Apart from the central and historical part of the city, Castelvetrano also has some other interesting churches - San Francesco da Paola church, San Giuseppe church and Santa Maria della Salute church. Among these my favourite is San Giuseppe that was damaged during an earthquake in 1968 and was never repaired. The ruins of this broken down church are very evocative.

Plants and trees

Apart from the vineyards and olive grooves, I saw some interesting plants and trees in Castelvetrano. At a friend's house in Castelvetrano, I was surprised to see a pepper tree, that are so common in Kerala in India.

Another surprise was to see plants and flowers from Cape Town region of South Africa including Aloe Vera and Strelitzia flowers.

Let me end this post with a wonderful image of oranges. Castelvetrano was full of fruit-trees including different varieties of oranges, mandarins and lemons.

Another of my favourites were the Sicilian sweets made with fresh ricotta cheese including the calorie-bombs called "canoli". I ate so many of them since it was so difficult to resist them. And now I need to do some serious dieting!

The second part of this post will be about the sixth century BC ruins of the Greek settlement of Selinunte, near Castelvetrano.

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