Faenza's MIC acquires Luigi Mainolfi's The Foot, enriching its contemporary sculpture collection

The permanent collection of MIC Faenza is enriched with a new work of contemporary art. It is The Foot, a sculpture created in 1983 by Luigi Mainolfi (Rotondi, 1948), an artist internationally recognized for his expressive path centered on the use of terracotta. The work will be officially unveiled on Saturday, May 10, at 11 a.m., during an inauguration open to the public. The acquisition was made possible by PAC2024 - Plan for Contemporary Art, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity.

"Of The Foot,“ Mainolfi himself writes, ”sometimes I miss the parts of the earth during flight, the details blur, I get closer and distinguish the forests, the waters, the roar of a volcano that spits life into history, the art of the lands. I sense the breath of the mountains where man has always found, in his skin, a cave in which to think and dream, and I wrap myself in the sculpture of the air, in the fire of art."

Although works by Luigi Mainolfi have been exhibited several times within the museum, the MIC in Faenza did not possess any works by the artist until now. The sculpture, a historicized work of Mainolfi’s production, made in 1983 and intended for wall display, is set in a fundamental historical period for the rediscovery of the expressive value of terracotta in the artistic sphere. Indeed, the 1980s mark a crucial moment for the relocation of this material in contemporary sculptural practice, thanks in part to the interest of artists who were able to enhance its symbolic and formal potential. The foot fits into a coherent dialogue with the works of other protagonists of that artistic season, such as Nanni Valentini, Pino Spagnulo and Carlo Zauli, already present in the museum’s collection. As with these authors, terracotta takes on a poetic and conceptual significance in Mainolfi’s work. Through meticulous but powerful gestures, the artist explores themes related to cultural memory and human archetypes. His works interrogate man’s relationship with his origin, with places of birth and with the “mother earth” understood as a universal, cultural and anthropological symbol.

In the context of the Faenza collection, The Foot will help strengthen the reading of an artistic strand that has returned ceramics to a central role in the visual and theoretical debate on contemporary art.

Faenza's MIC acquires Luigi Mainolfi's The Foot, enriching its contemporary sculpture collection

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