Sfera con Sfera

This allegorical sculpture in the form of an eye represents a globe within a celestial sphere rotating on itself. The two elements are cracked and fractured, allowing us to glimpse a complex and mysterious internal structure and mechanism, consisting of cubes, rectangles, lines, and cogs. These elements symbolise the fragility, complexity, and mystery of the world, life, and Humanity.
Pomodoro leaves the spectator to form their own conclusion as to the meaning of his piece Sfera con Sfera, which can be interpreted as a metaphor promising the rebirth of a less troubled, less destructive world. This piece is part of a series of monumental sculptures begun in the 1960s, with variants, exhibited in several public places and museums around the world: Vatican City, Rome, Milan, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris.
For Pomodoro, “the sphere is a marvellous object, of the world of magic, sorcerers. (…) To create a sphere is to break these perfect and magical shapes to discover their internal fermentations, mysterious and alive, monstrous and pure.”

Arnaldo Pomodoro is an Italian sculptor, born in 1926 in Morciano di Romagna in Emilia-Romagna. After obtaining a degree in architecture, he devoted himself to sculpture in the 1950s and settled in Milan. His works are three-dimensional arrangements that transform and manipulate space. He studies solid geometric shapes and transforms them through corrosion, cracking, and perforations to break their perfection and reveal what lies inside. Winner of the Grand Prix de Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1964, he became famous and many of his works can now be found in the world’s most prestigious museums: the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hakone Open Air Museum in Tokyo, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions in Venice, Milan, Rome, New York, and Osaka. He has also taught at various academic institutions in California, including Stanford, Berkeley, Mills College in Oakland.