“Ironizzare direttamente sulla scultura e indirettamente su certe situazioni”. Qualche considerazione sugli esordi di Paolo Icaro
Lara Conte
The art of Paolo Icaro makes an utterly original contribution to the languages that developed in the
1960s and 1970s, such as Arte Povera, Conceptual Art and Process Art, with particular impact on the
renewal of contemporary sculpture in a period in which its very definition was being challenged and
reconsidered. This article sets out to shed light on the early years of Icaro’s career, in the time span extending from 1958, when the young artist – having dropped out of University, with a background in
music – took his first steps in sculpture in the studio of Umberto Mastroianni in Turin, until 1966, when he
moved to New York, after living in Rome since 1960. Already in this years some crucial aspects of his work
emerge, like the definition of a canon, which is the measurement of the human body; play as a possibility
for rethinking sculpture in an anti-monumental guise; and the process of making as a continuous action
and an ongoing challenge to form.