http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sandamichaela-2635029-igor-mitoraj3/

Igor Mitoraj, who has died aged 70, was an artist renowned for his monumental sculptures of fractured heads, isolated limbs and torn torsos.Mitoraj produced ravaged fragments of classical figures which, with a post-modern flourish, referenced the damage inflicted on antiquities by the passing of time. “I feel that a piece of arm or a leg speak far more strongly than a whole body,” he said. His giant marble, terracotta and bronze works — sometimes consisting of merely an outsized chin and mouth, a huge cheekbone and eye or a monstrous face lopped off at the forehead like a cracked egg — appear as if ripped from the pages of history. “I love classical beauty, it gives me energy and hurts me at the same time,” he reflected. “I am attracted and yet upset by beauty.”His works have their greatest impact when paired with dramatic settings. In particular, his nod to Roman and Greek artistry suit the Mediterranean landscape: his Tindaro Screpolato bronze head still sits finely framed by the foliage of Florence’s Boboli Gardens, while in 2011 his towering busts and winged figures peppered the 5th-century ruins at the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento, Sicily.In Britain his works were installed in Canada Square at Canary Wharf; outside the main entrance of the British Museum; and, perhaps most strikingly, in the grounds of Chatsworth, where his Eros Bendato Screpolato — a four-metre-long bronze cracked head wrapped in metal bandages — lay on its side among the autumn leaves in 2009

Igor Mitoraj was born on March 26 1944 in Oederan, Germany, the son of a Polish mother and a French father

 Lux in Tenebris

Eros Bendato

Testa Addormentata 1983 Canary Wharf now has one of the United Kingdom’s largest collections of Public Art

Testa Addormentata | 1983 

Testa Addormentata | 1983 

Città Perduta II 2005

The Head of St. John the Baptist

Agrigento 2011 Gambe alate

Nascita di Venere, 1991

Gambe alate

Per Adriano (1993),  in front of the Teatro Guimerá, Plaza de la Isla de la Madeira, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Igor Mitoraj’s Centauro 

Centauro fountain Milan 

Centauro details

Centauro detail

Centurione IMichaelsberg Abbey in

Bamberg in the background

Igor Mitoraj au Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 2004

Au Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 2004Iron shadows 1994

 Luci di Nara (Lights of Nara)

Luci di Nara, at the main entrance of the British Museum in 2002

Luci di Nara (Lights of Nara) at lakeside of Toya, Hokkaido

Luci di Nara (Lights of Nara) at lakeside of Toya, Hokkaido

Text and pictures:  InternetCopyright: All the images belong to their authors

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuwww.slideshare.net/michaelasandahttp://www.authorstream.com/sandamichaela/

Sound: Joshua Bell - Serghei Rachmaninoff - Vocalize, Op. 34, No. 14