La Dolce Vita

A sculpture commemorating and paying tribute to this exceptional, fiercely individual personality, leading to contemplation and self-reflection.

The Italian director and screenwriter Federico Fellini (20 January 1920, Rimini – 31 October 1993, Rome) is one of the most prominent personalities in cinema worldwide. He has been celebrated as well as sharply criticized; he won a number of awards, including the David di Donatello Award from the Academy of Italian Cinema, five Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Lifetime Achievement, and the Palme d’Or in Cannes for La dolce vita. To this day, his work is an inspiration because of its timeless philosophy and imagination; it stimulates personal and social self-reflection.

The sculpture, a surrealistic blossom cultivated by human delusion, is a visual reminiscence of Fellini’s masterpiece, La dolce vita, from 1960. A critical pamphlet of the lifestyle of the so-called noble upper class does not disguise tragic consequences for the individual and the whole society. This binary principle (male and female in this case specifically) of the sculpture is indicated by two distinctly contrasting substances. They both attract and repel each other, pervading one another amorously and belligerently at the same time. They visually oppose each other with abstract geometric or organic modelling through the expression of the materials used. A heavy polygonal pillar from a naturally rusty plate is supporting and at the same time gently caressing a pinkish surreal “cloudlet”, an antagonist in its surface of mirror gloss from stainless steel. The forms, colour scheme, harsh and frivolous outlines of the sculpture metaphorically express the essence of human existence, jeopardized by moral decadence – sweet delusions and addictive infatuation.

The sculpture invites us to reflect current contexts and allegories of Fellini’s ideas. We can surrender to delusions of sweet matters at any time, as indicated by the reflections individually twisted by the gilding of the mirror surface. Single shapes are picturesquely deformed and everything true and significant is missed in the pink-golden gleams. It’s up to every individual whether they believe and gently surrender to the illusive image of themselves…

Versions

2019 — pink-gold plated stainless steel, Corten, 236 × 116.1 × 82 cm

2021 — pink-gold plated stainless steel, Corten, 345 × 165.3 × 124.5 cm

The smaller DolceVita666 (2024) is a separate work.