Anachronism, Material, and Memory. Luciano Fabro and the Ghost of Sculpture

In March 1971, Luciano Fabro exhibited his series Piedi (Feet), together with a statement in which he referred to Phidias and Praxiteles, Donatello and Buonarroti, Bernini and Canova. Also, Fabro emphasized his ambition to make the material “alive”: Murano’s glasses, rare marbles, and precious textiles that evoked old chandeliers from the 17th century. In the context of “the dematerialization of the artistic object”, as Lucy Lippard called it, Fabro disavowed this credo to instead revive the importance of craftsmanship and the aura of the old masters. This chapter analyses Fabro’s Piedi series according to the conception of the materiality of sculpture as Pathosformel and its survival as a “phantom” in the post-medium era.