Mimmo Paladino’s work is a reflection of his native landscape in southern Italy, in a region filled with the ruins to the ancient civilizations created by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Etruscans, Phoenicians, and Normans. Like archeologist, the artist unearths these civilizations and incorporates them into his work. During the 1980s, Paladino was a member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, which was characterized by a return to figurative art and which clearly drew upon the ancient civilizations that had left their mark on the Mediterranean region.

In Paladino’s own words, “Art is like a castle with many unexplored rooms [...] that you discover bit by bit as time goes by. The route which Conceptual art takes through this castle is a well-defined one. Mine is less well-defined, but runs parallel to it. I can choose one or the other [… ]. Like an acrobat walking on a tightrope, the artist moves in several directions at once―not because of any particular skill, but because he doesn’t know which to choose.”

Will Have No Title is a study in contrasts; it is three-dimensional, yet it hangs on a wall; it is composed of a number of abstract geometrical bronze forms alongside a classic torso with an expressionless face, which emerges out of a table on one side; the geometrical forms are painted in gleaming industrial red, while the torso and the table are rendered in bronze, in a deliberately careless manner. Laden with alchemical and religious symbolism, these intense colors blend together present and past and carry a quietly enigmatic, yet powerful meaning.