
Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004
Biography
Franco Cilia was born in 1940 in Sicily, in Ragusa. His research since the 1960s deals with the shattering of the ego and the relationship of the human being with his immaterial other, looking for what moves behind the visible, exploring the possibilities of symbiosis between informal and figurative on a linguistic level. Thus his sculpture attempts to reveal the anthropomorphic mystery of the stones of the Hyblean land, as a deep and underground expression of the Sicilian soul. Cilia’s art continues to evolve and in the 80s it finds international acclaim, from Madrid to Paris, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Istanbul, São Paulo of Brazil, Mexico City, etc … Her research moves between intimate and social, psychic and cosmic, while the contemporary use of different registers highlights a constant restlessness that prevents the fixation of his art in repetitive modules, in strong and ideological contrast with art as decoration or pure experimentalism: art for Cilia it is an instrument of knowledge. His works are now present in public museums and private collections all over the world. In the meantime, the artist has also dedicated himself to writing, ranging from fiction to theatre.
Philosophy
Franco Cilia’s art develops both in painting and in sculpture. In the first period of his production he deals with themes mainly related to the labyrinths of the psyche. In painting, his research is aimed at resolving the figure into chromatic and dynamic elements; in many of his works the sky becomes the protagonist together with his dynamisms of light, up to the fading of forms and the prevalence of pure color. With sculpture, on the other hand, he tries to discover the essence of reality, of his land, of Sicily. The artist is linked to his land both physically and idealistically, he is linked to the stones that he carves in a natural way and sometimes paints. Looking at a sculpture or rather a “stone” of Cilia is a bit like seeing the face of a Sicilian farmer: warm and open in relationships with others but that brings with it the fatigue of living. Cilia’s may seem a ruthless realism, but in reality it is only truthful, and as such, it does not close the discourse on human hope, but opens it. As the artist himself states, “the world is what it is and hiding it from us is useless”.
Artwork in Castagno
The critic Tommaso Paloscia, founder of the Castagno open-air museum, got to know the artist Franco Cilia in the 70s, on the occasion of his two exhibitions in Florence: in ’73 he exhibited at La Ghibellina and then in ’78 at the Pananti Gallery. He is so impressed, intrigued and fascinated by the Sicilian artist’s “stones” that he immediately invites him to Castagno where with pleasure Cilia leaves two sculptures as a gift to the village (plus one, smaller, in homage to Casa Paloscia). One of the two works located in the village is the anthropomorphic Sasso which, like the others in the “sassi” series, has the advantage of letting the observer see what the stone reveals only if observed carefully. Through a light and intuitive working of the stone, Cilia frees human figures from matter, often tragically or ironically bestial; he thus reinvents stone by creating an image that is at first sight blurred and then, on closer inspection, the shape conveys a state of mind, the soul or the culture of a land (in this case, the Sicilian one). In fact, looking at the Sasso one perceives, more than a human body, the strength of a spirit: the spirit of the place from which it comes, which has infiltrated the stone and has taken human form. The “stones” of Cilia are spirits of a land and therefore also of a history, of a past, they are the remains of ancient animistic religions. Those who observe them still have the freedom to see or glimpse, intuit, imagine, reflect. Without a doubt, however, regardless of the intimate and personal interpretations, the “stones” of Cilia are perfectly integrated into the environmental context of the stone village. Today, we could define them as an authentic and original example of Land Art.
The Borgo Museum has three “stones” by Franco Cilia, two sculptures located in the village (including this one entitled anthropomorphic stone) and a smaller one on the wall of Casa Paloscia. Find out more by reading the factsheet on Sasso di Ragusa and the one on Antropomorfico.