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© 2015 Matteo Pugliese

MATTEO PUGLIESEBREATH OF FREEDOM

32

Catalogue for the exhibition

“ BREATH OF FREEDOM”

at Bertrand Delacroix Gallery

November 5 – December 4, 2015

Special thanks to:

Natalia Quintavalle,

Italian General Consul in New York

Ruggero Corrias

Gianluca Cocco

Carmen Sabbatini

Fusioni d’Arte 3 V

Ugo Maria Reato

Mana

Photography of the artworks: Claudio Cipriani

Photography of the artist in the foundry and studio:

Fabio Mantegna

Design: Richard Norris, Project13.com

Dedicated to Bertrand Delacroix

4 5

Growing up in Italy, among churches, monuments, paintings and sculptures, makes you understand what the classical ideals of beauty and harmony are. It also means to have the chance to admire some of the most sublime artistic representations of the human body and creativity.

Matteo Pugliese’s works reflect this thousand years old tradition, being at the same time extremely modern, progressive and forward oriented.

Human sculptures emerge from the matter and become real individuals, who escape homologation and reaffirm their unicity. They do not accept life as apathy, and they struggle to exist, refusing to be particle of an overwhelming universe.

“Extra Moenia” works artistically descend from the thousand years old Italian cultural heritage. Classical art, body myth, Michelangelo’s struggle between matter and form are embedded in the Italian artist sculptures. These works merge together plastic tradition and contemporary sculpture, classicism and innovation, respect for the past and building of the future.

Thanks to Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, it is with great pleasure that we see this very Italian exhibition taking place in New York, the most important and receptive artistic and cultural crossroads of the Western world.

THE CONSUL GENERAL OFITALY

NEW YORK

Natalia QuintavalleConsul General

Matteo Pugliese

690 PARK AVE, NEW YORK, NY 10065 | (212) 737-9100

6 7

Alternativa Silver 39” x 18” x 10¼”

Bronze 2013

8 9

Tempesta 23½” x 17¾” x 10½”

Bronze 2014

10 11

The Line 67¾” x 30¾” x 11½”

Bronze 2014

12 13

Boxer 37½” x 17¾” x 10¼” Bronze 2014

14 15

Kriya 26¾” x 25½” x 7¾” Bronze 2014

16 17

Born in Milan in 1969. In 1978 his family moved to Sardinia where Matteo lived for the next 12 years. During this time he developed a strong love for drawing and sculpture and continued his art work without any formal education. In 1995 he received his degree in Modern literature at the University of Milan with a graduation thesis on Art criticism.

In 2001 he organized and fi nanced his fi rst solo exhibition renting private space in the centre of Milan. Only 18 months later he held his fi rst “offi cial” exhibition in a gallery in Milan, and after a few months he held a solo show in Brussels.

Today his works are on permanent display in galleries in Italy and major cities throughout the world, Rome, Hong Kong, London, Brussels, Lugano, Capri and Antwerp and have been shown at some of the most international art fairs such as: Hong Kong Art Fair, Miami Art Basel, Arco (Madrid), ArtFirst (Bologna), Miart (Milan), Fiac (Paris), Eurantica (Brussels), CI Contemporary Istanbul and many others. In recent years his pieces have been sold with considerable success at some of the world’s most prestigious fi ne art auction houses (Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonham’s, Dorotheum etc). He is married with one daughter. He lives and works between Barcelona and Milan.

M AT T E O P U G L I E S E

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On Pugliese’s innovative bronze sculptures, Luca Beatrice, Italian art critic and curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 53° Venice Biennial, stated:

“His sculpture [is] absolutely figurative and at the same time absolutely contemporary. These are adjectives that at first sight are hard to force into coexistence. Pugliese has adopted the path of a renewed Pop Art, original and hyper-contemporary, that dismantles the old dictates on statuary into strongly characterized and newly gestated expressive fragments…One can discern in the tense nerves and imposing limbs of his sculptures the dense musculature of the giants on the Sistine Ceiling or the sixteenth-century anatomical studies of Leonardo daVinci, and find in the poses some hint of bacchanals, saints (Sebastian in particular), Last Judgments - but Pugliese avoids the risk of a sculpture so purely classical as to seem anachronistic…. In a display of titanic potency, his modern Telamons do not support the weight of the architecture holding them, but are an integral part of a whole from which they try to break free. The bodily violence imposed by the material is emancipated in the sculptural details, rendered dramatically expressive by Pugliese’s hands.”

Vertigo II 44¾” x 12½” x 14”

Bronze 2014

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2015 “Infinite Battaglie”, White Room Gallery, Positano (Sa), Italy

2014 “Serenissima Babel”, Caffè Florian, Venice, Italy

2013 “Passaggi”, Imago art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland

“Corazze”, Fondazione Mudima, Milan, Italy

2012 Presentation of the bronze sculpture “Samurai Guardian V”, MAS Museum, Antwerp, Belgium

“Matteo Pugliese: Sculptures” WM Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium

“The summer of the Beetle”, Galerie Noordeinde, The Hague, Holland

2011 “Matteo Pugliese - CORAZZE”. Casa d’arte Artribù, Rome, Italy

“I Guardiani del Tempo”, Imago Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland

“Out of the Wall”, Sculpture Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

2010 “From the wall and further tales”, Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery, Hong Kong

“HEROES”, Galerie Noordeinde, The Hague, Holland

2009 “Through Light and Space: G. Morandi & M. Pugliese”, Imago Art Gallery, London, UK

2008 “Matteo Pugliese- Walter Trecchi” Galerie Noordeinde. The Hague, Holland

2007 “Matteo Pugliese, Sculptures”, Filip Kesteloot Sculpture Gallery, Brussels , Belgium

2006 “ Matteo Pugliese” Galleria Pittura Italiana, Milan, Italy

2006 “De Ontsnapping: M.Pugliese, A. Smirnof” Galerie Noordeinde, The Hague, Holland

2005 “Extra Moenia”, Galleria Gagliardi , Taormina (Messina), Italy

2004 “Matteo Pugliese & M.M. Gautier”, Filip Kesteloot “Sculpture Gallery” Brussels, Belgium

2004 “Freedom”, Galleria Gagliardi, San Gimignano (Siena), Italy

“Flight from the wall”, Filip Kesteloot Sculpture Gallery”, Brussels, Belgium

2003 “Matteo Pugliese, sculture: 1998-2003”, Galleria “Il Castello”, Milan, Italy

2002 “Matteo Pugliese – Extra Moenia”, Orea Malià, Milan, Italy

2001 “Extra Moenia, Matteo Pugliese ”, McCann-Erickson, Milan, Italy

SOLO EXHIBIT IONS

22 23

Indian Guardian (Vaishravana) 17” x 9¾” x 8½” Bronze 2015

2524

Swiss Guardian 22½” x 13¾” x 11” Bronze, terracotta and Swiss coins 2013

26 2726

Ethiopian Guardian (Mursi)15¾” x 9½” x 8½”Bronze2014

28 29

Amazonian Guardian (Yanomami)

17¼” x 8¾” x 8¼” Bronze

2015

30 31

Zeitgeist 55” x 17¾” x 10¼”

Bronze 2012

32 33

La Promessa 43¾” x 24½” x 10¼”

Bronze 2010

34 35

Pan 37¾” x 12½” x 10½” Bronze 2013

36 37

Dannato 28¼” x 17¾” x 10¼”

Bronze 2012

38 39

Closed 47¼” x 59” x 10¼” Bronze 2010

40 41

Attraverso 49¼” x 20¾” x 10¼”

Bronze 2010

4342

Zenith 49¼” x 48” x 5”

Bronze 2010

44 45

Acriter 28¾” x 13¾” x 7¾”

Bronze 2015

46 47

Raw 29” x 14½” x 9”

Bronze 2015

48 49

Inuit Guardian 12¼” x 9” x 8¼” Bronze and terracotta 2014

50 51

Maori Guardian III 17” x 11¾” x 10½”

Bronze 2014

52 53

Samurai Guardian VIII 24” x 15” x 11”

Bronze and terracotta 2013

54 55

Samurai Guardian V 82¾” x 55” x 49¼”

Bronze and terracotta 2010

56 57

Fire 29” x 13¼” x 7½”

Bronze 2011

58 59

Gravitas 34½” x 35½” x 15”

Bronze 2014

60 61

Infinite Battaglie 33” x 11½” x 10½”

Bronze 2015

62 63

Crossed 50¼” x 29½” x 14½” Bronze 2013

64 65

Working on Specchio – my soul is reflected into the palm of my hands.

66 67

Specchio 38” x 22¾” x 13¾” Bronze 2013

68 |

The Line pg. 10 - 11 | edition 7+3 172 x 78 x 29 cm

Tempesta pg. 8 -9 | edition 7+3 60 x 45 x 27 cm

Alternativa Silver pg. 6 - 7 | edition 3+1 99 x 46 x 26 cm

Boxer pg. 12 - 13 | edition 7+3 95 x 45 x 25 cm

Kriya pg. 14 - 15 | edition 7+3 68 x 65 x 20 cm

Indian Guardian (Vaishravana) pg. 22 - 23 | edition 7+3 43 x 24.5 x 22 cm

Zeitgeist pg. 30 - 31 | edition 7+3 140 x 45 x 25 cm

Ethiopian Guardian (Mursi) pg. 26 - 27 | edition 7+3 40 x 24 x 22 cm

Vertigo II pg. 19 | edition 7+3 114 x 32 x 36 cm

Swiss Guardian pg. 24 - 25 | edition 7+3 57 x 35 x 28 cm

La Promessa pg. 32 - 33 | edition 7+3 111 x 62 x 26 cm

Amazonian Guardian (Yanomami) pg. 28 - 29 | edition 7+3 44 x 22 x 20 cm

Pan pg. 34 - 35 | edition 7+3 96 x 32 x 27 cm

Inuit Guardian pg. 48 - 49 | edition 7+3 31 x 23 x 20 cm

Closed pg. 38 - 39 | edition 7+3 120 x 150 x 25 cm

Samurai Guardian VIII pg. 52 - 53 | edition 7+3 61 x 38 x 28 cm

Dannato pg. 36 - 37 | edition 7+3 72 x 45 x 27 cm

Maori Guardian III pg. 50 - 51 | edition 7+3 43.5 x 30 x 27 cm

Attraversopg. 40 - 41 | edition 7+3 125 x 53 x 26 cm

Samurai Guardian V pg. 54 - 55 | edition 4+1 210 x 140 x 125 cm

Zenith pg. 42 - 43 | edition 7+3125 x 122 x 13 cm

Raw pg. 46 - 47 | edition 7+3 74 x 37 x 23 cm

Acriter pg. 44 - 45 | edition 7+3 75 x 40 x 20 cm

Fire pg. 56 - 57 | edition 7+3 74 x 32 x 19 cm

Gravitas pg. 58 - 59 | edition 7+3 88 x 90 x 38 cm

Crossed pg. 62 - 63 | edition 7+3128 x 75 x37 cm

Infinite Battaglie pg. 60 - 61 | edition 7+3 84 x 29 x 27 cm

Specchio pg. 66 - 67 | edition 7+3 97 x 58 x 35 cm

EXTRA MOENIA

OPPOSITE:

GUARDIANS

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