Sculpture for a private courtyard
Mantua, Italy

Partner: Structural design, Idea srl, Engineer Resp. Massimo Ragno, Verona; Technical  Supervisor: Daniele Donegà, Ilario Salvaterra 

Setting up: Engineer Gaetano Rubinelli, Verona; 

Lighting: Studio illuminazione Flavio Guarnieri – Filippi-Targetti, Bologna, Italy Project: Residential 

Artist: Sergi Barnils 

Period: March 2020 

Place: Location near Mantua, Italy

The plan is to build a monumental work sculpted out of granite from Tarn (France), more  than two metres in diameter and weighing over 3000 kg. The Catalan artist explains the  choice of material, which is highly symbolic because it was recently used, along with other  materials, to build Antoni Gaudì’s Sagrada Familia as well as numerous historic buildings  in Barcelona.  

The work, designed to relate closely to the building and the Italianate garden of a  prestigious home in the Mantua area, occupies the centre of a courtyard, underlining the  sense of perspective and offering a variety of different points of view. The work is one of a  series the artist produced in various types of stone, in which his plastic alphabet brings  together related lines and signs in a monochromatic colour palette.  

As the artist explains, “my alphabet of signs is not random but has been constructed over  years and years of work. In dialogue with one another, the symbols speak to us of the  great cosmic adventure of human existence, of the Celestial City, of the tree of life and of  our eternal home as described in St. John’s Book of Revelations. All the configurations and  symbols in this spiritual story fit into the big circle, a symbol of eternity”.