Sicilia

Following in the footsteps of the Grand Tour travelers, Asami Kato retraces in Sicily the stages once taken by other illustrious foreigners such as Goethe, Dufourny, and above all Jean Houel. After his Roman experiences, Asami Kato arrives in Sicily, seen as the realm in which Classical Greek culture was formed and developed, and where the harshness of the landscapes opens to the spirit the mythological world of the Cyclops and Proserpina.

Here, however, alongside the works of the classical world, the baroque architecture so widely present, with its volutes and its movement, has undoubtedly influenced even more the sculptures that Asami Kato created. Thus the Greek Temple of Agrigento, the Amphitheater of Taormina, and the Castle of Enna lose their geometric composure and become dancing forms, almost in eternal motion.

And so, unlike the works of the Venetian period, where architecture seemed to merge and dissolve into the water, the Sicilian works tend instead to rise into the air, light and floating.

There is no longer an almost obsessive attention to architectural detail, to the grain of bricks, or to plaster worn away by time. The grandeur of the architecture and the urban and natural landscape surrounding it do not permit this; they leave room only for the monument as a whole, already great and singular in itself. At most, as in the Chiesa dello Spasimo in Palermo, those trees that symbolize our beautiful and untamed island nature are incorporated.

Asami Kato's works are therefore a call to all those who love architecture so deeply that they make it an object of reflection, instead of limiting themselves merely to ...