“‘Tindaro’,” which went under the hammer Tuesday at Polswiss Art’s Sculpture and Spatial Objects Auction, opened at PLN 4 million before surging to 6.89 million including fees, the auction house said.
“This is an absolute price record for the artist on the professional auction market,” said Marzena Karpińska, vice president of Polswiss Art. “It’s the largest and most narratively developed work by Mitoraj ever offered at auction, with prestigious provenance and history.” She added the sculpture will stay in the public realm, with the precise location to be announced.
The patinated-bronze head, four meters high and weighing 2.6 tons, is on view through the end of September at Warsaw’s Plac Trzech Krzyży, outside the Sheraton Grand hotel, according to Marta Rydzyńska of Polswiss Art.
One of 47 lots in the sale, “Tindaro” arrived in Warsaw from France. Created in 1997 on commission from the international firm KPM, it originally stood outside the company’s headquarters in Paris’s La Défense business district.
The work ranks among Mitoraj’s grandest pieces: a monumental head of a young man named Tindaro, evoking Tyndareus, king of Sparta and father of Helen of Troy. The artist produced several interpretations of the figure; versions can be seen in Piazza Armerina in Sicily, on Lucca’s Piazza dell’Anfiteatro and in Florence’s Boboli Gardens.
Mitoraj’s work fuses classical beauty with the marks of time, setting perfection against fragility. As the auction catalogue notes, the deliberate fragmentation—recalling ruins of the ancient world—invites reflection on transience, memory and the durability of art, while summoning the grandeur and heroism of life.
Igor Mitoraj (1944–2014), born Jerzy Makina, was a Polish sculptor who worked abroad from 1968 in France, Germany and Italy. Regarded as one of Poland’s leading contemporary sculptors, he launched his major career after moving in 1979 to Pietrasanta, near the Carrara and Monte Altissimo quarries.
With support from Italian arts patron Maria Angiolillo, his first major exhibition took place at Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo in 1985, paving the way for prominent shows across Europe and the United States and commissions including caryatids for the Paris Police Prefecture, a fountain in Milan and a monument on Rome’s Piazza Mignanelli.
(jh)
Source: PAP