Barry X Ball. Portraits and Masterpieces

Artists: Barry X Ball

Authors: Giandomenico Romanelli, Barry X Ball, Bob Nickas, Elena Forin, Laura Mattioli, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Giancluca Poldi, Mario Diacono

Edited by: Laura Mattioli

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Fueled by love, I’m reaching back to a time centuries before the Modernist Revolution, searching for a way to make something equally revolutionary.
Barry X Ball

Barry X Ball’s sculptures, although paying reverent homage to their historical antecedents, are completely new. Through the use of unconventional materials and innovative methods, the artist reinvigorates the age-old tradition of figurative stone sculpture. Ball employs an elaborate array of equipment and procedures to realize his works, ranging from the cutting edge to the traditional, from 3-D digital scanning, virtual modeling, and computer-controlled milling to hyper-detailed hand carving and polishing. The sculptures’ complexity is echoed in their clinically poetic titles. With their simultaneous fever-pitch intensity and surreal stillness, Barry X Ball’s bravura works make an expansive case for the reconsideration of contemporary sculptural practice.

This book has been published on the occasion of the major exhibition of Barry X Ball’s sculptures at Ca’ Rezzonico, the magnificent palazzo and museum overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. In this show, the largest ever of the artist’s work, the sculptures have been carefully selected to interact with particular Ca’ Rezzonico room environments, creating a lush progression of site-specific installations.