Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture

Artist and artisan, art theorist and proto-installation artist, master of high-publicity performances and rival of Auguste Rodin, Medardo Rosso (b. 1858 in Turin, d. 1928 in Milan) was one of the great pioneers of modernism. mumok is dedicating a comprehensive retrospective to the Italian-French artist’s still little-known oeuvre, which will feature about fifty sculptures and a large selection of photographs, photocollages, and drawings. The exhibition delves into a thorough analysis of Rosso's processual and repetitive and radical anti-heroic approach, with which the artist defied all conventions of traditional sculpture. A selection of works by artists directly or indirectly influenced by Rosso — such as Francis Bacon, Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brâncuși, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, David Hammons, Eva Hesse, Marisa Merz, Robert Morris and Andy Warhol — further unpack and create a dialogue with Rosso’s equally groundbreaking and hermetic work. The “expanded” retrospective thus adheres to Rosso’s own artistic practice of not exhibiting alone but in “conversation” with others.
 The exhibition, which is being organized in close collaboration with the Medardo Rosso Estate, will subsequently travel to Kunstmuseum Basel, where it will be on view from March to August 2025.

Exhibition design: Florian Pumhösl and Walter Kräutler