Light, Water, Stone: Metamorphosis at the Stadio dei Marmi

The Fascist era Stadio dei Marmi of the Foro Italico is a setting that is loaded with complicated, often troubling historical associations, and as an artistic subject, with its stolid, stern and commanding marble statues of athletes, it might seem to be in need of some resuscitation. For Wendy Artin, the challenge of tackling the Fascist period's representation of "superman" was a logical segue from years of work focusing on the subject of the ideal male form. Her explorations have ranged from Greco-Roman heroes to the fluid marble forms of Bernini to the lithe bodies of the young Roman dancers she has engaged as models. Her work at the Foro is perhaps the deepest engagement yet with this challenging subject and is resplendent with renewal and life!

Built as the Foro Mussolini in 1933, the marble male athletes that Artin has chosen to paint surround a stadium that is the heart of a complex of buildings devoted to the glorification of the male athletic physique. Male physical presence and prowess were an important part of Il Duce's persona and by extensions were key to the program to raise up Italy as the reincarnated third Rome. The complex resulted from a competition design by architect and master planner, Enrico del Debbio. The buildings, wrapped in a mild and brittle classicizing veneer, contain gymnasia and swimming pools, and are surrounded by several exterior stadia and courts. the focus of it all on central axis and flanked by the other buildings, is Stadio dei Marmi ( stadium of marble statues ). Its form is an evocation of the circuses in ancient Rome, where the victors of foreign conquest ended their celebratory processions through the city parading before the rules seated at sides in bleachers. Here the victors, frozen in marble, are now the spectators lining the perimeter of the stadium and have become super sized, growing to almost twice their height. The 60 statues were donated by the provinces and colonies of Italy and represent the traditional sports of the Olympic games. Their scale and their stern, blank facial expressions give them more than their share of gravitas.

How stunning then are Wendy Artin's dancing, flowing, liquid renditions of these Rocks of Gibraltar! While there is no doubt that the massive statues will ever move again (even though their subject is action and movement), Artin's images on the other hand would seem to be in constant metamorphosis and might take different poses were we to blink. I think this effect comes from the many years of work that Artin has done with live human models, who change their poses frequently and at times as often as every few minutes. This requires on the part of the artist the ability to quickly capture the essence of the gesture.

Even though Artin's work in front of the permanent poses of the marmi involved sustained sessions lasting several hours at a time and sometimes several days on end, the results are neither labored nor static. It may be that the play of light, which accompanies the flowing sepia watercolor washes, is what animates these stationary forms most effectively. Light (and its corollary, conditions of shade and shadow) is the essential ingredient in Artin's world of graduated transparent monochrome washes. It is the dynamic transition in the same wash from clear water to intense pigment that tells the essential story of light and shadow. Bathed in light, the dead forms of stone are miraculously brought back to resemble human life and heroic movement. Like the childhood game, paper wraps stone, scissors cut paper, etc., Artin's washes envelop these forms with life allowing them to be the victors again!

Stephen Harby
Architect, FAAR '00