Baldo Diodato @ Rome Art Week

Baldo Diodato

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Baldo Diodato was born in Naples, Italy, in 1938, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts andthen continued his education at the Albertina Academy in Turin. His artistic work is mostlyinfluenced over the years by pop art, minimal art, performing arts and conceptual art.His works are characterized by the environment of the places where he lives: we can therefore findthe liveliness of the Baroque Naples, the frenzy of a walk in New York, and the eternal classicalnature of ancient Rome mixed into an alchemical set of an unmistakable tone. Diodato begancreating his works in the early Sixties when both pop and Neapolitan cultures were to be found, forexample, in Still life by mail, where his ironic and unscrupulously experimental predispositionbecame his signature style.The strong desire to discover, live and experience, took the artist to New York in 1966. From hisGreenwich Village studio, looking out of a square shaped window and seeing the never-endingmovement of passersby, he decided to capture their footsteps leaving a trace in time of their path.The first street performances appeared, like the J.F.K. Square in Philadelphia, where, similar to thewindow, a square shaped 6x6 metre canvas, is transformed into a stage with living sculptures.Diodato's works hence became the result of a partnership of we the creative, that replaced me theartist. The geometry of a square, present in almost all his works, had already been used in hisprimary characteristics, essential, minimal, with the slender structures of the Two cubes exhibited atthe Modern Art Agency, by Lucio Amelio, in Naples, in 1967.In 1992 the artist transfers to Rome and passes from canvas to aluminium. This gives a newmeaning to his art without breaking anything with the past, but rather, starting from the cobblestone,a unique symbol of Rome, connects to the anchor of the Pompeii mosaics and again to the squareshape of the window in New York. His versatility leads him once again to experiment: it is withcasting that he transforms the paths on canvas into new sculptures, a metallic revelation of thepavements of Rome, the sign of time on the cobblestones that the artist and public model withsteady blows of a hammer. Canvas, copper and aluminum continue to be included in the artisticresearch of Baldo Diodato, they are his tools to capture and impress the movement of people, theirsteps, and their emotional involvement.