1
The Riace Warriors
5th century BC. Bronze
National Museum of Magna Graecia, Reggio Calabria
I traveled to Reggio Calabria to see these two colossi discovered at the bottom of the Ionian Sea, buried by the slab of eternity. These giants, who could play basketball, heroes of Antiquity about whom we know almost nothing, are imposing. Who created them? Whom do they represent? What does it matter. Only their powerful image and the imposing time, colossal, like a fossil in bronze, count.2
Batlló Majesty
Mid-12th century. Polychrome wood
MNAC, Barcelona
I am touched by this Christ with fish eyes and symmetrical hair and beard, an ordinary man, dressed in the colors of Barça, who ends up nailed to the cross. His serene beauty resists time well, and I observe his prominent belly above the belt. The image of the suffering Christ that would later prevail is still far away. Its last owner, Enric Batlló, gives it its name as a posthumous tribute to his splendid donation.3
Penitent Mary Magdalene
DONATELLO. 1453–1455. Wood
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
This Magdalene, wearing a coat of her own hair, looks like a man. She was carved in wood by Donatello, the finest sculptor of the Quattrocento, deliberately departing from the stereotype of the saint as a seductive woman. Here she is a penitent hermit, obsessed with the son of God. If we approach her emaciated face and look closely behind her sunken cheekbones, we will find the eyes that still love Christ, her master.4
Pietà
MICHELANGELO. 1498–1499. Carrara Marble
St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Of Michelangelo's Pietà, Everest of Renaissance sculpture, I am not only impressed by its serene beauty, the sublime mixture of spirituality and humanity that the image conveys, but I am obsessed with an anatomical detail only within reach of a great sculptor: the fold that forms in Christ's right armpit when Mary supports the weight of the body in her lap. Marble transmuted into skin.5
Perseus with the Head of Medusa
BENVENUTO CELLINI. 1545–1554. Bronze
Piazza della Signoria, Florence
I like to contemplate this sculpture from behind and observe the monstrous face on the back of Perseus' helmet. Then I look at it from the front and realize that it is a fusion of tradition and modernity, between classical sculpture and Michelangelo, and it is extremely light. It seems that, like a comic book hero, he is about to fly off with his winged helmet and his sandals sofashion.6
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
GIAN LORENZO BERNINI. 1647–1652. Marble
Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
There is no other image in Western art that better condenses the mystical experience and orgasm. The last time I saw it, I put a euro in a box to turn on the light and enjoyed the spectacle of marble and passion: the beloved angel arrives with his arrow and, barely grazing the untouched body of the saint, transfigures her in a rapture as spiritual as it is carnal. Bernini, a sensual sculptor.7
Lion Monument
BERTEL THORVALDSEN. 1819–1821. Marble
Lucerne
I will never forget the day when, walking through Lucerne, chance led me to the top of a hill to see the lion carved by Thorvaldsen. A magical place where the king of the jungle sleeps majestically in his rock cage, outlining his beautiful posture in a lake, like a zoological Narcissus. A street group played Cuban music, marking a cultural contrast beyond space and time.8
Sleeping Muse
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI. 1910. Bronze
Metropolitan Museum, New York
I fell in love with this golden face, with a forehead polished like a pebble, slanted eyes, a turned-up nose, and a pine nut mouth. In the simplicity of that object, a head turned into an egg, lies its sublime beauty, when the 20th century was beginning and life was still celebrated. A work of pure and absolute forms, perfect like a jewel. I only wish that one day it will wake up, open its eyes, and look at me.9
Walking Man
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI. 1960-1961. Bronze
Private Collection, New York
Every time I look at this fibrous man by Giacometti walking, I remember Henri Cartier-Bresson's photograph showing the sculptor crossing the street in the rain, sheltering himself in his own trench coat. And I think that Giacometti's work is a metaphor for his life: a man walking aimlessly, lost in the immensity of the world. Ironically, one of its versions is the most expensive sculpture ever sold.10
Maman
LOUISE BOURGEOIS. 1999. Bronze, marble and stainless steel
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
Like Gregor Samsa's nightmare, the memory of Louise Bourgeois's spider invading my city and sweeping away everything, natives and tourists, grips me at night. This monumental sculpture guarding the Guggenheim in Bilbao has something extraterrestrial about it. You can walk between its long bronze legs without being able to caress its cold and sinister belly. A spider metamorphosed into a mother. When I woke up, she, so beautiful, was still there.