Free Art Friday: Arnaldo Pomodoro in Los Angeles
Catherine Hess, Art Muse Lecturer
An overlooked and little-celebrated sculpture graces the south side of Los Angeles’s DWP John Ferraro building, just west of the Music Center. This is Colpo d’Ala (Wing Beat) by Arnaldo Pomodoro (b. 1926), one of the most important Italian sculptors of the 20th century. The monumental bronze is composed of two wing-like triangles tilted upward, as if about to take flight. The sculptor seems to have split a larger wedge shape to create the triangles, revealing the guts of the larger form. This is a signature concept of Pomodoro’s practice: excavating beneath pristine surfaces to reveal the messier inner workings of the mass. He contrasts the smooth perfection of geometric forms with the chaotic complexity of interiors that resemble glyphs, mechanisms, or circuit boards. Polished exteriors reveal mysteries within.
In the summer of 1988, the Italian government commissioned Pomodoro to create a monument celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, the massive economic recovery act following World War II. Italy received $1.5 billion and the unveiling was scheduled for later that year. Pomodoro did not have enough time to design a new piece, so he offered a large version of his smaller-scale Colpo d’Ala, which was already at the foundry. He had created the sculpture in 1981 for the town of Morciano in Emiglia Romagna as an homage to the great Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916). Pomodoro was born there and Boccioni lived there. The composition suited the Futurist aesthetic celebrating mechanical force and movement.
Los Angeles was selected for this honor as "the model American city of the Space Age." The 6-ton bronze was dedicated on December 12, 1988 by Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita, the first Italian head of state to visit California. De Mita called the work “a token of my country’s eternal gratitude…to this extraordinarily vital city…at the extreme frontier of the Western world. From here it [is] almost ready to take flight to a faraway land, bringing a message of peace, progress and hope from our two countries.” Pomodoro oriented the sculpture, which can be rotated manually, to point west as a symbolic gesture to the connection between Los Angeles and the Pacific Rim.
Pomodoro began working on a large scale in 1966 when he was commissioned to create a nearly 12-foot-in-diameter sphere for the Montreal Expo (now installed at the Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome). His monumental public work can be found in Milan (where the artist lives and works), Copenhagen, Brisbane, Dublin, Darmstadt, Tel Aviv, and the Vatican as well as at Storm King, the United Nations in New York, and the Paris headquarters of UNESCO. In California, his work can be seen at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Mills College (now part of Northeastern University) as well as in such public collections as LACMA and the art museums of San Diego, Palm Springs, San Jose, and San Francisco.