On December 4th, a very special guest will "land" in the courtyard of the Museum of Decorative Arts Accorsi-Ometto: the sculpture E.T. by Riccardo Cordero, created in 2007.

This work is a tribute to art and baroque architecture. Characterized by a frenetic interplay of curved lines, it best expresses the dynamic tension of energy in motion, trapped within a robust and shiny stainless steel surface.

With this sculpture, Riccardo Cordero demonstrates starting from the continuous and multidirectional movement of baroque surfaces to achieve non-figurative outcomes that place him in continuity with abstract and spatial experiments of the twentieth century, interested in giving shape and color to individual feelings and thoughts.      

The Director of the Accorsi-Ometto Museum, Luca Mana, declares: "BEYOND THE BAROQUE expresses the will of the Accorsi-Ometto Foundation and its Museum to move beyond the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries and to look beyond, to periods closer to us such as the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. Pietro Accorsi and Giulio Ometto were two important collectors. They lived in the twentieth century and from this extraordinary period they tried to capture its soul, the most traditional one, which attributed an important social function to decoration: appearing was more important than building. What we want to do today is to tell the rest: to show how works of art have been an important means of political propaganda and that ultimately ours is not a space dedicated solely to late baroque, but a showcase through which to tell the excellences of a territory that can be Turin, Piedmont, or the whole of Italy. BEYOND THE BAROQUE is also the sculpture by Riccardo Cordero placed in the center of the courtyard of the Accorsi-Ometto Museum. A work whose genesis lies in the admiration of its author for the great baroque architecture, but which, at the same time, represents the attempt to give shape and color to typically twentieth-century concepts, such as speed, simultaneity, and control of emptiness. A sculpture that will enrich the courtyard of the Museum for the coming years".

The E.T. sculpture is a "gift" to the citizens and can be viewed for free

by entering the courtyard of the Accorsi-Ometto Museum.

ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY

RICCARDO CORDERO (Alba, July 19, 1942) is an Italian sculptor among the most internationally recognized. Graduated with honors in Sculpture from the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin in 1963, he taught at the Artistic High School, later becoming head of the Sculpture School at the same Albertina Academy until 2001.

President of the Piemontese Arte Association since 1995, he curated the Pinacoteca of the Albertina Academy from 1996 to 1999 and collaborated with public entities on important studies and projects dedicated to visual arts, including the International Arts Laboratory for the Piedmont Region.

He has participated in significant international competitions, including the one for the Turin Automobile Museum (3rd place, 2004) and the one for the construction of the headquarters of the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation (2005). Since 2004, he has coordinated, as APA president, the International Sculpture Biennials of the Piedmont Region hosted in the Savoy Residences of La Mandria, Agliè, and Racconigi.

Since 2009, he has been part of the Management Team of the Shanghai Sculpture Park. He has been invited to give master classes and lectures in Asia and the Middle East, by the University of Taiwan (2010) and by the Ministry of Culture of Kurdistan (2010–2011).

In 2021, he won the competition for a public artwork at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, creating New ET, a monumental corten steel sculpture 17 meters high placed in an important square in the Chinese city. In 2022, he is the protagonist of the exhibition Celestial Games, Riccardo Cordero at the Reggia di Venaria, while in 2024 a selection of the same works will be exhibited at the INRIM Campus in Turin.

He recently concluded in Germany the solo exhibition Orbital Traces, Celestial Forms in corten steel and plexiglass at the Werner Wohlhuter Galerie in Leibertringhen and, as the winner of the Huangpu Riverside Sculpture competition, he will have to create a large sculpture in Shanghai next year.