Cecco Bonanotte Museum

The official catalogue of the newly opened Cecco Bonanotte Museum in Tokyo.

Few artists have the good fortune, and the privilege, of conceiving, designing, building and organising a museum devoted to their own work: an unparalleled opportunity to tell the story of the dreams, visions, courage, challenges and ideas which guided them along the way, forging their style and bringing their poetry into being. This magnificent challenge is a one-of-its-kind honour for Cecco Bonanotte (1942), but also an immense responsibility, made all the more exciting by the fact that the establishment of a museum devoted entirely to his art has come about thanks to the support and praise of illustrious representatives of his second, adopted homeland: Japan. His ties to Japan date from back in the 1970s, when, as a young artist just starting to gain notice on the international scene, he was invited to take part in exhibitions, in addition to being assigned official commissions, with the crowning recognition arriving in 2012, when he was awarded the highly coveted "Praemium Imperiale".

In this extremely valuable publication, which testifies to the importance of a truly exceptional museum project, each individual work of sculpture is examined through the rigorous, sophisticated camera lens of Alessandra Maria Bonanotte, the artist's daughter. Through the use of an original artistic language that combines what Pascal called the "spirit of geometry" with the "spirit of finesse", Cecco Bonanotte creates a richly expressive sculptural world overflowing with a refined, free and sometimes mysterious atmosphere. As has often been noted, Bonanotte's art reflects the "Italian tradition" stretching from Donatello and Michelangelo to Manzù and Fazzini; going even further back in time, we might also glimpse traces of a wide variety of forms from the ancient Mediterranean world.