Augusto Perez

Born in Messina in 1929 by a Sicilian father and mother in Milan, Perez will transfer a child in Naples – where he will go out in 2000 – by partaking of the atmosphere of the sea and the fire of a city both solar and lunar, volcanic and impossible, so grandiose as sometimes atrocious, land of Pulcinella and putative birthplace of Virgil. The attendance at the atelier of Vomero Ennio Tomai, the subsequent registration of Perez at the faculty of architecture that will leave to devote himself, body and soul, to sculpture.

Onset occurs in the collective of young Neapolitan artists of 1951, in which Perez Vendor exhibits the work of cigarettes – a polychrome plaster later destroyed; the exhibition elicited among other consents Vasco Pratolini. Three years later, Perez has the gallery Neapolitan “Prussian Blue” a group of large plaster sculptures: in this same year he met Renato Guttuso.

In 1955, he was invited to take the post of assistant professor of sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples, held by Emilio Greek. Always ’55 is his personal in Rome and, the following year, participation in the XXVIII Venice Biennale. It will also be present in the XXX and XXXIII edition of the Venice exhibition. His works were exhibited at the Rodin Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art in Paris; at Columbia University in New York, at the Biennale of Antwerp and Tunnard Gallery in London.

After a trip to Greece, the roots of classical sculpture, in the mid-70s model the Great Centaur and the Crucifixion of the Apollo Belvedere. He was awarded the Prize for Sculpture from the Academy of St. Luke. In 1981 he exhibited in Vienna in the review “Anthropos”. Five years later, he was elected Academician of the Virtuosi of the Pantheon. In 1992, the Royal Palace of Naples is prepared, edited by Nicola Loi and Franco Paglia, the staff “Augusto Perez. Works 1981-1991”. In 2000 he received the “Antonello da Messina” and “Casalbeltrame – The golden frog”; in December of that year, a month after his death, it was inaugurated a major retrospective of Perez in Castel dell’Ovo in Naples.

His first sculptures, like polychrome plaster Seller cigarette Start 50s (later destroyed), affected by a poignant realism that reverberates in the voices of the streets of Naples. Woman on a bicycle, another chalk presented at the Biennale of ’56, confirms this trend line built around the city of Naples and its eco underground if not deafening. But it is in the 60s that there was a change, works with magmatic modeled directly with your hands, in an uncontrollable need to hear the matter, a rational impulse to create but following the moment and instinct. They take the form bronzes Big Narcissus (1966), Great Centaur Crucifixion and the Apollo Belvedere, both of 1974. It is a retelling of the myths of antiquity in a modern way, creating a sculpture of gothic, numeral of ‘Art of Perez.

Whisky, 1971

Bronze, 175 cm x 85 x 52

The sacredness of myth disguises, in the art of Augusto Perez, also an act ordinary and anonymous as may be filling a glass. A woman, I assume from the hair part, with angular robotic gesture and holding firmly the bottle, pour the alcoholic beverage that gives title to the work. The quiet, modern and almost banal everyday ritual flakes, breaking rhythmically with the subject. In this sculpture, Whisky, celebrate itself a dream ambiguous as to dull the bottle and the Goblet soporific, now of bronze, filled with a fluid deceptive nothing.

Kronos 1991

Bronze, 245 x 100 x 107 cm

Also this sculpture, which depicts the ravenous Kronos, the father of the gods time and men, refers to the Greek culture, dear to the artist. Face crushed beyond recognition or weakened and evanescent what is the essence of the front time, every time. A clock face without hands. Caryatids kneeling perhaps, bent forward in front of a twisted candle, symbol of light and again in the works of Perez. On top of the column that starts from the head of hair, a sundial. In Greek mythology, Kronos is a cannibal god and of their progeny as cannibal killer.

Double Samovar, 1994

Bronze, 157 cm x 83 x 61.5

A samovar, or an everyday object that turns doubling under the restless eye, the look of plastic Perez. Almost Pandora’s box, also emerges here – behind the samovar real or what we mean and we see it as such – another vase that turns into an alter ego representational time point, a presence, a genie very special and individually intrusive. The face peeps behind the object become subject, in a kind of humanization, tribute carnal than the passive matter.

Augusto Perez (1929-2000) knows how to surprise us because he knows understand, can understand – almost his art was a strange game of distorting mirrors – the dark side and bright, strong and weak of ourselves and of our dreams.

Gold “; in December of that year, a month after his death, was inaugurated a major retrospective of Perez in Castel dell’Ovo in Naples.

Whisky, 1971

Bronze, 175 cm x 85 x 52

The sacredness of myth disguises, in the art of Augusto Perez, also an act ordinary and anonymous as may be filling a glass. A woman, I assume from the hair part, with angular robotic gesture and holding firmly the bottle, pour the alcoholic beverage that gives title to the work. The quiet, modern and almost banal everyday ritual flakes, breaking rhythmically with the subject. In this sculpture, Whisky, celebrate itself a dream ambiguous as to dull the bottle and the Goblet soporific, now of bronze, filled with a fluid deceptive nothing.