From - September 13th to December 31st, 2024. The splendid setting of Palazzo Doebbing in Sutri (VT) hosts the exhibition of Italian sculptor Ferdinando Codognotto, a very important exponent of wood carving art. The exhibition project dialogues with the great celebratory exhibition on Alessio Paternesi, pride of Viterbo in the territory of Tuscia, one year after his death.
Codognotto’s exhibition, which was strongly desired, conceived, and realized by patron and philanthropist Prof. Avv. Emmanuele F. M. Emanuele who, for more than two years, has generously committed to this project, is promoted and supported by the Fondazione Terzo Pilastro - Internazionale, chaired by Prof. Alessandra Taccone, in collaboration with the Municipality of Sutri and it’s Municipal Department of Culture-
Visitors will be able to admire four large Swiss pine sculptures of the Val di Fiemme created by Master Codognotto at different moments of his life, using an electric bandsaw technique. These works are: Marlin (the only one of the four painted with acrylic colors), Amanti – Abbraccio Infinito (Lovers – Infinite Embrace) from 1972, Cavallo del future (Horse of the Future), and Pianta della prosperità e abbondanza (Plant of Prosperity and Abundance).
For Codognotto, wood is the means through which he communicates his own ideational repertoire where, alongside figures from nature but also fairytales, religion and the cosmic world, he also combines images of and references to the most extreme technology. However, his sculptures are and remain a symbolic manifestation of reality: on the one hand, a representation of the natural world and, on the other, scientific rationalism, both in their dialectics and in their substantial unity.
Through his works, the artist does not claim an unreal world, suspended in its perfection and, above all, he does not make a single aspect of his poetics the protagonist, preferring nature, technology, religion, or fairytales. Instead, he draws attention to the possibility of their conciliation through an artistic dialogue.
Master Ferdinando Codognotto was born in San Donà di Piave on April 4th, 1940. He was the son of a landscaper and the grandson of a nurseryman. At the age of five, he was already working with wood and modeling clay. He studied at the Art School of Venice, specializing in restoration and, when he was still very young, he moved to Rome, where he opened his workshop in Via dei Pianellari n. 14, and where he still works today. In September 2015, the Luigina and Ferdinando Codognotto Foundation was founded. It houses the permanent exhibition of the Master's most famous pieces and offers workshops for young individuals who wish to learn how to work with wood. Codognotto is one of the leading wood sculptors on the international art scene, and his works are present in important public and private collections in Europe, the Americas, and Japan.