ArtTour International Magazine
Lorenzo Quinn
For more than twenty years, Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn's work has illuminated and challenged almost every major metropolis between Beijing and New York City. Indeed, his monumental sculptures—most often incorporating the unique dexterity and empathy of human hands—dare their viewers to reflect more profoundly upon the universal. For example, in order to highlight the timeless concerns about aggression and war, he has unveiled a series of sculptures that depict pairs of children's hands, including A Dangerous Game in 2017 in Miami, Florida. Quinn has further addressed the dire necessity of resource conservation, as exemplified by two sculptures installed in Venice: Support in May 2017 in the Grand Canal facing Ca' Sagredo and Stop Playing! in October 2018 at the military fortress, Forte Marghera. These allencompassing ideals achieved a culmination of sorts in May 2019 with Building Bridges, an installation of six pairs of monumental hands entitled Faith, Friendship, Help, Hope, Love, and Wisdom.
Lorenzo Quinn was born in Rome to the Oscar Award-winning Mexican American actor Anthony Quinn and his wife, costume designer Iolanda Addolori. Quinn's childhood was split between Italy and the United States. His father fostered his love for art as a child, and he followed that path into adulthood when he attended the American Academy of Fine Arts. It was there that he discovered his passion for sculpture.
Despite a brief stint as an actor in his twenties, Quinn decided to focus solely on sculpting. For Quinn, sculpturing is primarily an art of communication; he enjoys making his work's meaning clear, and it can sometimes be months until his finished product is revealed. Quinn has a unique way of working, preferring to
find inspiration by writing poetry. He begins with a poem whenever he makes his sculptures. By doing so, he creates a three-dimensional poem about, for example, a flower growing instead of a model of a flower.
Along this transcendence journey, the master of the monumental has also become the master of the miniature. For Quinn has translated his monumental works into breathtaking jewelry—not by merely scaling downsizes, but by brilliantly recrafting them in precious metals and stones. He has also created entirely original art that reimagines some of his earlier artistic motifs, including the Infinity collection. This line of wearable masterpieces— spanning bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and rings—prominently features forever loops held together by two hands clasping in love. Still, further, Quinn has broken new ground with wearable series such as the Bespoke sculpted jewel collection, which features handcrafted pieces that are as unique as the fingerprint that lies at the heart of each piece.
Below is an excerpt of our first exclusive interview with Lorenzo Quinn September 2015, for our ATIM Español 2015 issue of ArtTour International Magazine, in which the artist was our cover story.
Tell us a little bit about your upbringing. You come from a vibrant culture. How was it growing up?
"Growing up was wonderful. I had fantastic parents, amazing brothers, and a rich cultural environment and atmosphere. I was fortunate, and I will never forget that. Most importantly, what influenced me were the diverse cultures that I was always exposed to. I lived first in Los Angeles, and then I moved back to Italy and then to New York City, which is the melting pot of the world. So I was always under the influence of so many cultures, and I love to learn, listen and grow. One important thing is that my father was 51 years old, and his friends were all relatively older than me. They were wise, and that's who you learn from—these wise people have a lot to teach you."
Your father, Anthony Quinn is a legendary figure; he was in the film world's limelight. How did growing up with him influenced your life and career as an artist? Was he an inspiration for you?
"First and foremost, the fact that you ask me this question already demonstrates how it has influenced me. I've had to deal with this since the beginning of my artistic career. It has created some preconceptions for some people, and it has created some barriers in others. The fact is that I continuously have to prove my merits to others.
Their judgment of me was probably harsher than it was toward others. Perhaps some were pleasantly surprised. Still, some might have thought that they were going to see this kid—a son of a great actor—playing around, doodling with his hand. If they do come to the show, though, they'd probably be surprised, so that was good.
I'm quite over that now. I've been working for close to over 30 years, and I'm fortunate. My work is doing quite well, and I don't sit
and think about that. I have to stay that I did try to escape my father's shadow, but where could I go? You're talking about Anthony Quinn—it's not like I could leave New York and go to Connecticut, and people wouldn't know him. The whole world knows him, so where was I going to go?
What I did was concentrate on my work and try to forget about what my background was and who my father was. Instead, I would just think of him as my father. I love him— him and my mother, of course."
Early in your career, you had planned to become a surrealist painter, inspired by Salvador Dali, then at 21, you had a change of heart and decided to pursue sculpture. What was the turning point? "That was the turning point; the turning point was interpreting the genius Salvador Dali because I was a surrealist painter. And I was trying to emulate Dali; he was my artistic hero. The imagination that he had, his creativity, his technique —all were unsurpassed. I just love everything he did. I did not have his technical ability and probably will never have it. I didn't have his incredible ideas.
I am more of an emotional artist; I am more of a symbolist artist. I talk more to the heart and the soul. I think that's my strength. It's a one-on-one conversation with my viewer. Dali was amazing; it blows my mind every time I see his artwork. Because I was a method actor, when I played him, I became the role." (In his twenties, Quinn had a brief acting career, including playing alongside his father in Stradivari (1989) and an acclaimed performance as Salvador Dalí).
"Once I got to know him better, I realized that Dali was Dali, and Lorenzo was Lorenzo, and I had to change and do something different. I had to find my own niche—that's why I changed from painting to sculpting and from surrealism to symbol realism. That was when I was 22 years old."
You have said that your defining characteristic is that your work is communicative. Is it fundamental that your the audience sees what you create?
“Well, yes, I create work to communicate an emotion, a concept, to people. Therefore, before that, I need people to be able to understand it. If I were doing this interview in Bangladeshi, you wouldn't understand it; therefore, there would be no communication, and there would be no article. And I feel that this is the way I want my art to be, for us to understand each other. Thus, I am always looking to create art that can be understood on a universal level, and that's why I work a lot with hands. I don't exclusively work with hands, but I work along with hands because you can say many things with a simple hand gesture. There are so many wonderful things to be said still about so many subjects. Why talk about nothing when there's so much to talk about.”
While Lorenzo Quinn has garnered enough international acclaim to last a lifetime, he is driven forward by the inspiration originating in his guiding philosophy—a work of art can forever change a person. So, he will continue to create and then give to the world the works, both exquisitely miniscule and exceptionally monumental, that can change a person and integrate them into the forever of art.
In 1988, Quinn married Giovanna Cicutto; shortly after that, he and his wife decided to leave New York and move to Spain, where he still lives and has his studio.
www.lorenzoquinn.com