The graphic and sculptural writing of Arnaldo Pomodoro

Arnaldo Pomodoro’s printmaking oeuvre is generally relegated to an ancillary role. Considered a minor form of expression, Pomodoro’s graphics have often been neglected by critics. Two-dimensional and serially produced on a paper substrate, they stand in contrast with the attributes that, for both experts and lay people, characterize Pomodoro’s sculptural works: majestic plastic configurations made of noble metals in single copies or limited editions. By focusing on the final product and neglecting the creative process, this categorization, however, conceals certain fundamental elements of Pomodoro’s artistic enunciation. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s theories on “making” and on enunciative semiotics—an approach inaugurated by Émile Benveniste and later developed, through the contribution of Algirdas Greimas and Jacques Fontanille, by the Paris School of Semiotics—I would like to offer a few insights for developing a different conceptualization of Pomodoro’s graphic work in relation to his craft as a sculptor. This, as various critics have noted and as the artist himself has often stated, is characterized by a profound fascination with writing.