‘Humanitas’ at San Lorenzo, Bomb Blast Commemorative Sculptor Andrea Roggi’s New Show

 

 

Until August 8:  HUMANITAS | The Power of Love. Basilica of San Lorenzo, piazza San Lorenzo.  Open Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5:30 pm.  Admission to the church and the show: €9.

Humanitas presents Tuscan artist Andrea Roggi’s nine new bronze sculptures celebrating peace, harmony, and human connection to nature.

The exhibition’s sculptures are displayed both in front of the San Lorenzo basilica’s unfinished façade and side elevation, and alongside its beautiful orange tree in the greenery of the Renaissance cloister. The show, curated by art historian Laura Speranza, aims to invoke serenity, love, Roggi’s affection for Florence, and the Tree of Life, a recurring theme in the artist’s work. The human figures embrace, their forms transforming into olive branches and fruit trees. The nine works trace Roggi’s artistic path: the first bronze statue, Atman, a spellbinding, armless female figure, was made when the artist was in his early twenties. There are sculptures of bronze trees, figures launched into space (Family in Flight) and a terrestrial globe surrounded by people singing about peace (Imagine all the People), symbolising unity and harmony.  You can find an audio guide about each sculpture through this link.

To explain the process behind the works’ creation, a rich illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. This covers the drawing stage, moves to the clay model stage and finally the fusion of the metal alloy and sculpture’s finishing. Roggi’s sculptures are particularly unique: the artist’s innovative casting technique of dynamic fusion grants the sculptures a remarkable lightness and defiance of the laws of physics.

The exhibition’s website is www.andrearoggi.com.

Roggi’s artwork has also been displayed in Florence since 2022. Three years ago, the artist’s sculpture Albero della Pace (Tree of Peace) was given a home as a permanent exhibitionn via dei Georgofili to commemorate the victims of the 1993 Florence bombing, a terrorist attack carried out by the Sicilian Mafia on May 27. The explosion killed five people and injured a further 40. Roggi’s vision for his sculpture was therefore to reunite Florence and to promote love and compassion in memory of the attack.  (Keziah McCann)