Arnaldo Pomodoro, 1963–1965
Bronze
Description: A brass sculpture of a sphere within a sphere. The outside sphere looks to be deteriorating to reveal the inner sphere. The sphere has a smooth exterior and opens to reveal that its interior is made of industrial or gear-like forms. The inner sphere has the same smooth exterior with an opening that reveals its textured interior.
An Italian Sculptor’s Planetary Vision
Sphere within a Sphere, by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, is an abstraction of the world in which we live. Its core looks like something out of science fiction, but was actually inspired by Renaissance representations of an ideal city. Pomodoro described it as symbolizing “the rebirth of a less troubled and destructive world”—his own way of visualizing a hopeful future.
Credit: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966