Ligabue sculptor

Sculpture - even before painting - is the creative medium with which Ligabue begins to express his innate need to communicate.

The oxbow lakes of the Po river - along whose floodplains Ligabue usually takes refuge - offer him a clay, the tivèr, which he works by chewing and kneading with his mouth and in which he finds the fundamental element to give appearance to that animal world to him so expensive.

The sculptures often represent, for Ligabue, a form of barter, the redemption of his begging, the security of a hot meal. He rarely bothers to bake his works, most of the time he leaves them to dry in the sun, making their conservation very risky.

Ligabue himself, on several occasions, destroys the works if they don't get the consent and attention he believes they deserve. He considers them ephemeral creations destined to be destroyed, he is indifferent to their fate, content with having tamed the urgency of a demiurgic act.

If the drama in Ligabue's paintings is resolved in the clash of colors, in the deformation of the lines on the canvas, in sculpture, on the other hand, it is expressed through the contrast of volumes that seem to seek ever more space, more air, more life.