PARIS.- At MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique, Mimmo Paladino presents Lucumone - a sculptural apparition that feels both excavated and invented. The word Lucumone refers to the highest magistrate in Etruscan society - a figure of power, ritual, and mystery. But Paladino doesn’t offer a historical portrait. Instead, Lucumone becomes a vessel - something between a relic and a presence, between myth and invention.
The form is essential and totemic, echoing ruins, masks, or artefacts, yet defies direct interpretation. As in much of Paladino’s work, the form is pared down, almost elemental. The surface carries the weight of time: weathered, marked, expressive. It stands like a sentinel, enigmatic and still, holding within it echoes of the Mediterranean, of rituals half-remembered, of something sacred that resists definition.
Paladino has always moved freely between mediums and meanings, blurring the lines between painting, sculpture, film, and theatre. Lucumone continues this trajectory - a piece that’s as much about space and silence as it is about form.
This presentation in Paris offers a preview of Paladino’s upcoming solo exhibition at MASSIMODECARLO London, opening on April 29 - his long-awaited return to the UK. If Lucumone is any indication, the show will explore Paladino’s deeply personal visual language, one that doesn’t depict the past, but reimagines it - with poetry, freedom, and intensity Mimmo Paladino (Paduli, 1948) is one of the leading figures of contemporary Italian art. Since the late 1960s, he has developed a distinctive visual language - personal, expansive, and open to a wide range of media. His early work began with photography and drawing, gradually extending into performance and theatre. Alongside his painting, sculpture, and printmaking, he has collaborated with key figures such as Ettore Sottsass, the Memphis Group, Mario Botta, and Renzo Piano.
His work draws strength from the symbolic landscape of Southern Italy, while embracing a broad, experimental vision. In the 1970s, he stepped beyond the frontiers of the avant-garde, widening the possibilities of expression through an ever evolving mix of techniques and disciplines. He became a central voice in Transavanguardia, the movement theorised by Achille Bonito Oliva, alongside Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, and Nicola De Maria.
The 1980s marked a period of international recognition, with Paladino participating in major exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale and Documenta. In the decades that followed, he continued to explore new territory, bringing his vision into public space with large-scale installations like Montagna di sale in Naples and Montagna blu in Solopaca, in the province of Benevento. His work has been presented across the globe - from Beijing to Florence’s Forte Belvedere, and in numerous institutions throughout Europe and the United States.
Paladino’s works are held in the permanent collections of many of the world’s leading museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York, Tate in London, Neue Galerie in Berlin, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, and the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo.
