Stele by Mimmo Paladino
Stele by Mimmo PaladinoPiazza della Vittoria - Brescia BS
In Piazza Vittoria, amidst the rigid volumes of rationalist architecture, stands a figure that doesn’t shout for attention, yet stands out: Mimmo Paladino's Stele is a six-metre-tall work in Nero Marquina marble, twelve tons of matter that seem to breathe.
THE WORK
Essential. Dark. Vertical. The Stele has an imposing presence devoid of aggression, almost like a shadow carved into the city. It reflects light in its own way, sometimes absorbing it, sometimes reflecting it, and in doing so it transforms stone into thought. It’s an invitation to stop, look, and reflect.
Installed in 2017 during the city-wide Ouverture exhibition, the Stele occupies a symbolic spot: the same pedestal where the Bigio, a statue celebrating the Fascist regime that was removed after the war, once stood.
But Paladino chooses to rewrite history, not cancel it. Where before there was rhetoric, today there is abstraction. Where there was power, now there is poetry.
Its sharp lines speak the same language as the square, but do so in a different way. They don’t impose, they suggest.It’s a monolith that gives no answers, but leaves them suspended. A bridge between what was and what can be.