As part of the sale dedicated to jewellery and artists' jewellery on Thursday 12 March 2020, PIASA is offering for sale eight pieces by Mimmo Paladino, a central figure of the Trans-avant-garde movement.
The real birth certificate of Mimmo Paladino, whose real name was Domenico Paladino, was the 1964 edition of the Venice Biennale where he saw the work of the American artist Claes Oldenburg (born in 1929). He was then only 16 years old. When he started drawing a few years later, it was in an iconographic repertoire heavily influenced by Greco-Latin mythology, Byzantine culture and the Quattrocento that the artist found his inspiration. His works were presented in 1976 in Brescia before being the subject of an ambitious exhibition in New York at the Marian Goodman Gallery.
In 1980, it was this time as a guest artist that he took part in the Venice Biennale in the "Aperto 80" section alongside Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola De Maria, the other Italian artists of the Trans-avant-garde movement.
During the 1980s, the artist became one of the major protagonists of art in Italy. His works as well as his discourse advocate a return to the minimal or even primitive function of art. Painter, draftsman, engraver, sculptor, he seized on craft methods and experimented with traditional techniques to create strange animals, or hybrid and distorted characters.
On the large gilded silver cuff bracelet, plant motifs are next to a human silhouette treated in a schematic way. Characteristic of the artist's production, it is reminiscent of the small idols of the Cyclades. Made in 1986, it is offered for sale with an estimate of between 5,000 and 7,000 euros.
Mimmo PALADINO (born in 1948)
1986
Large cuff bracelet in silver (925 ‰)
Estimation : 5 000 / 7 000 €
The gilded silver pendant, made in 2002, combines metal, wood and cotton very effectively. Equipped with a vermeil clasp, it is estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000 euros.
