MR ARBITRIUM IN ZURIGO

After being installed in numerous Italian cities and in Ukraine in its original resin version, Mr Arbitrium, one of my most iconic works, has now arrived in Zurich in a new, monumental bronze version.

Standing over five metres tall, the giant was created for Ledermann Group, the project’s commissioner, and permanently installed in a prominent position at the company’s elegant headquarters.

The bronze version required months of work and the involvement of a team of skilled artisans at Salvadori Arte, a historic lost-wax art foundry in Pistoia, where every stage of the process took place: from wax modelling to casting, welding, and chasing, through to the final patination. With a sculpture of this scale, engineering and craftsmanship must necessarily work hand in hand. An internal steel structure supports and connects the different elements, while the numerous bronze sections are welded together and subsequently chased. It is a true three-dimensional puzzle, in which every component must find its exact position in order to recreate the balance and tension of the original gesture.

Here too, the work engages with the architecture around it through that deliberately ambiguous gesture that has always defined its meaning: is the giant pushing or supporting?
Two opposing actions, expressed through the same muscles, the same tension, the same energy. It is from this ambiguity that the meaning of the work emerges, leaving the observer free to decide whether to see the giant as someone resisting or someone supporting what stands before him: the building, the church, the architecture of our present. Places that embody our memory and our culture. In Zurich, however, I feel that Mr Arbitrium takes on a particular nuance. The giant enters into dialogue with a city deeply connected to enterprise, innovation, and the ability to transform ideas and visions into new possibilities. Here, more than anywhere else, I like to imagine him as a figure who supports: not only the architecture that welcomes him, but also that creative energy capable of shaping the future.

With his monumental presence, Mr Arbitrium thus continues his journey: a sculpture that does not seek to offer answers, but to raise questions and leave each observer free to choose.