HOMMAGE À HOMÈRE – 74cm FRANCESCO MARINO DI TEANA

Signal towers

The “Signal” towers that Marino made between the 1960s and the early 1970s are less obvious in their architectural design, but as equally rich in new perspectives in space distribution. Three of them, in Montpellier (H.17m), Chevilly (Orleans - H.17m) and Mulhouse (H.10m) mark a real visual renewal in the urban landscape of France between 1967 and 1968. However, the technical feats that characterize them result in a certain fragility which, due to lack of maintenance, led to the amputation of the Montpellier sculpture a few years ago. The strong symbolic potential of these works (such as The Mast in the colors of Canjuers or the monumental project for the city of Le Havre) comes from the synthesis achieved by the combination of their technical qualities, of their “organic” dimension (for instance evoking waves in Tribute to Homer or evoking stone in the structure at Clignancourt) and of their spatial properties (Dialogue with three cylinders).

Born in 1920 in Italie, Francesco Marino di Teana was graduated of the Fine- Arts school of Buenos Aires (Argentine), and then moved to France in 1953.

Painter, sculptor, architecte, philosopher and poet, he devoted his whole life and all his creation to discover, develop and construct the modelization projects of urban space. He undertook numerous public and private purchases between the 1960s and the 1990s in France and as well in Europe, a set of Fontaines Monumentales at Grand Palais (Paris), the 21 meters high Liberté in the Fontenay-sous-Bois which is the biggest sculpture of stainless steel in Europe (1990). Presented as well in many museums, like the National Museum of Modern Art, Marino di Teana was subject to a retrospective at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1976. He also represented Argentina to the Venice Biannale in 1982 and won the Commandant Paul- Louis Weiller de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts Prix in 2009.