Vincenzo Musardo - Cupid

The subject of this work was conceived through a citationist approach. In the phenomenology of artistic movements, citationism consists of reproposing an image from the past, from the historical-artistic tradition, recontextualizing it according to the artist's sensibility. Citationism has been and continues to be transversal to various contemporary artistic movements, such as Surrealism, Metaphysical Art, and Anachronism. Vincenzo Musardo has directed his entire artistic research toward this type of approach, reproposing images of the past in his multi-material canvases. In this specific case, the Cupid in question offers a suggestion closely tied to his homeland: the putto, in fact, seems a typical example of the Salento Baroque, detached from one of the rich friezes that adorn the marvelous churches of the Lecce area.

In his work, Vincenzo Musardo seeks to breathe new life into ancient works. For this reason, his artistic process involves selecting images from the art of the past—Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian, and even Baroque art in Lecce—and reconfiguring them in his canvases. These are fragments of bodies, armor, and figures of gods and men, which, through Musardo's highly personal technique of mixed-media oil painting, acquire a genuine tactile consistency on the canvas. Following the process of Metaarchaic art, as Musardo himself defined it in 1974, the artist guides the viewer on a journey into the past, discovering a connection with our roots, becoming a conduit for a strong connection between past and present. All of this, however, presupposes a reworking by the artist, in order to avoid a mere exercise in pedantry. From this perspective, Vincenzo Musardo imbues his quotation with new meaning, first and foremost by giving a precise artistic value to the material (a fundamental element in contemporary aesthetics). The material used by Musardo, in fact, is both a reference to the ancient (in its refined degradation that cloaks the object in an antique patina) and an observation of the present (being the result of a synthesis of iron oxides, marble dust, and adhesives, resulting in a malleable plastic mass). Furthermore, Cupid himself is subjected to slight expressionistic plastic deformations, in a vibrant modeling of his corporeal mass that presupposes a modern sculptural conception.

An artist originally from Galatone, where he was born in 1943, he graduated from Lecce and then attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Cherleroi, Belgium, where he worked as a designer for about ten years. In 1973, he won the Michelangelo d'Oro award. Around 1974, he developed the concept of "Metaarchaic Art," in which, rather than recovering the value of ancient images, the artist aims to revive them through an exaltation of the material consistency on the canvas. His exhibition activity has developed especially since 1959, with several important national and international events, such as the World Expo in Seville in 1992 and the exhibition at the Katsigra Museum in Larissa, Greece. His work has been discussed by
important critics such as Vittorio Sgarbi and Gillo Dorfles.

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