Constantine Nivola

"I never went to school, that is why I like to teach," says sculptor Constantine Nivola. Actually, Nivola, who is an instructor at the School of Design, did for a time attend the Institute Superiore d'Arte of Milan. The school, modeled after Germany's famed Bauhaus, was intended to give Italian architects and designers the same scientific theoretical training that established the renown of the great German academy. In a typically Italian manner, Nivola comments that the institute at Milan didn't even get around to translating the Bauhaus' declaration of principles. "Freedom was the main thing," Nivola recalls, "just like the Renaissance."

He admitted that he as well as the other students often felt lost in this atmosphere. This caused them to turn for inspiration to Mario Marini, the great contemporary Italian sculptor, who was at that time attached to the institute. But, according to Nivola, his help consisted of little more than shouting to the boys while on the way to his studio "Coraggio Ragazzi" (Courage Boys)!

Nivola takes his own teaching very seriously. As for his particular method, he teaches what he knows, which means that most of his students can be found experimenting with his block and sand sculpture. He encourages them to read and participate in other arts as well; because he is dedicated to the Renaissance ideals of the universal man and universal art even in this age of specialization. A good sculptor, he believes, should be familiar with the traditions of architecture and painting. Likewise he says "I think architects and planners should learn to paint, to carve, to cast, to work in all phases of design. One aspect of the visual arts is not enough."

The Exhibition at Robinson Hall

Something of Nivola's ever present sense of humor must have come into play the day he was watching his family make patterns with the sand on a Long Island beach. That was when he conceived the idea for his sand-sculpturing technique. Now his most important sculpture is made by modeling details in reverse patterns in wet sand and then filling these molds with concrete or plaster of paris. The result is a kind of bas-relief.

By molding just a thin surface of geometric shapes Nivola is able to keep the sculpture light and at the same time project it easily into large dimensions. "My dream," he says "is to make sculpture as big as buildings." Because he does not favor mere ornament or decoration, the relation between his sculpture and architecture is very close. Nivola aims at making his sculpture a functional element of architecture itself; perhaps solving architectural problems, but at any rate growing together with the building. Thus sculpture like the free standing bas-relief of sand "The Hermits" (pictured) can stand alone, serve as a mural, or even act as a building wall.

The selection of Nivola's work at the Design School is rather scanty. It is, however, bolstered by photographs of commissioned sculpture and drawn studies. The two types of sculpture represented are the bas-relief panels, and isolated pieces of curved or jagged forms built up block by block to suggest human figures or abstract themes. Nivola's block-sculpture is organically interrelated and stylized. There is a certain dullness in the texture of the concrete, especially when combined with smooth, anonymous geometric forms. He has tried to create more interest by marking the surfaces but in terms of whole figures, these markings seem haphazard. Nivola also attempts to create interest in the surfaces by applying color. The scale of this experimentation seems as yet too limited, except in one bas-relief panel. Here the color gives real character to the surrealistic fantasy.

Nivola's sand reliefs suggest comparison with Egyptian friezes both in technique and design. His modern use of plastic elements and abstract design have the same qualities of solemnity and simplicity; the concern for the essential; the regularity of the whole; and the flat streamlined look of their Egyptian counterparts. The most successful architectural use of the wall relief so far are the murals in the Olivetti showroom in New York where Nivola worked from the beginning of the stores construction with the architects. They show most clearly the influences of which he speaks: "Sardinian prehistoric constructions and sculptures, traditional costumes, the baker and craftsman." They imply perpectives beyond that of the more anonymous abstract design beyond the boundaries set by Le Corbusier in his comment on Nivola's work: "only plastic ideas cleanly conceived can be written in unstable sand."