Dormienti

Mimmo Paladino returns to exhibit in a public space in Milan with a project designed for the Sala Stirling, in which he re-presents the entire series I Dormienti (The Sleepers) alongside a group of drawings from 1973. Curated by Lorenzo Madaro, the exhibition focuses on one of the artist’s most renowned works, consisting of thirty-two terracotta sculptures derived from the same mould but arranged in constantly changing configurations, in direct dialogue with the architecture that hosts them.

I Dormienti (The Sleepers) appear as silent bodies, lying in a fetal position, suspended between sleep and wakefulness, transforming the space into a theatrical and immersive environment. The audience is invited to move freely among the figures, experiencing the installation as a landscape of pauses, relationships, and attentive listening, where the sonic dimension also contributes to shaping the perceptual experience.

The project has its roots in the late 1990s, when the work was first presented and later restaged in various international contexts, also in dialogue with the music of Brian Eno, whose sound piece accompanies the experience. The bodies evoke both the imagery of archaeological remains and the curled figures in Henry Moore’s drawings, suspended between protection and vulnerability.

Alongside the installation, a more intimate room presents a series of large drawings from 1973, which represent the origin of the artist’s visual language and his interest in myth and drawing as a primary space of research. In these works, the foundations of a poetics emerge that rejects conceptual rigidity in favour of an imaginative and symbolic dimension.

Overall, the project highlights the constant relationship between work and space, typical of Paladino’s practice, where sculptures are not isolated objects but elements that transform the environment into a shared perceptual and narrative experience.