Oro y plata, 1999

chocolates on panel
40 × 50 cm
Autenticated artwork

(published in Catalogue Raisonné vol. 1 p. 204)
Photocredit: Alessandro Zambianchi

At the end of the 1950s Mondino studied mosaics at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but since he felt the use of stone or enamel tiles would weaken and alter the meaning of his project, he decided to replace the classic tiles with sugar cubes or chocolates. Specially wrapped for him, by Peyrano in Torino, with an in nite range of colored papers and made with “a special mix that lasts forever,” to make a long series of works with chocolates. Oro y Plata and Sangre y Arena are inspired by the tauromachy and the clothes of the toreros (but also by the Hollywood cinema), a theme that has always fascinated the artist.
As in a trompe-l’œil Mondino changes our way of seeing things and their function, conveying his own vision of reality in which the image seen from a distance is double, paradoxical and deceptive.