1. Medardo Rosso, La conversazione, 1903, Museo Medardo Rosso, Barzio, Photo Credit : mumok / Markus Wörgötter
The exhibition "Medardo Rosso: Inventing Modern Sculpture" at the Kunstmuseum Basel is the first major retrospective in Switzerland in over two decades of the Italian sculptor. It was organized in collaboration with mumok (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) and presents approximately 50 sculptures and more than 250 drawings and photographs. The exhibition is structured in two main parts: a monographic presentation on the ground floor of the Neubau, and a thematic dialogue with over 60 artists on the second floor. These artists range from contemporaries of Rosso to major figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. The exhibition invites the viewer to understand Rosso not only as a pioneer of modern sculpture but as an essential reference for contemporary artistic practices.
2. Medardo Rosso, Rieuse, 1910, Private Collection, Photograph : mumok / Markus Wörgötte
Medardo Rosso's practice and artistic recognition
Medardo Rosso was born on June 21, 1858, in Turin, Italy. His family later moved to Milan, where he studied at the Accademia di Brera before being expelled in 1883 for organizing a petition demanding the right to draw from nude models. Despite this, his academic training in anatomical drawing influenced his early development. He became associated with the Scapigliatura movement, which advocated for anarchist ideals and artistic renewal in the art.
From the mid-1880s, Rosso began to challenge the dominant sculptural traditions by using plaster and wax as a true sculptural material instead of being labelled as “preparatory” materials. His figures were often intentionally blurred, incomplete, or emerging from their surroundings, emphasizing the instability of perception and the fleeting nature of experience. He avoided heroic subjects and instead depicted children, laborers, and anonymous individuals.
In 1889, Rosso moved to Paris, where he entered avant-garde circles and developed ties with artists such as Degas and Modigliani and writers including Apollinaire and Valéry. Initially close to Auguste Rodin, their relationship eventually deteriorated due to artistic rivalry. In Paris, Rosso staged semi-public casting demonstrations and emphasized sculpture as both object and event.
A significant aspect of Rosso's practice was his use of photography, beginning in the late 1880s. He treated photographs not as mere documentation but as a creative medium, using cropping, montage, and varied exposures to reinterpret his sculptures. He often displayed photographs alongside sculptures, copies of classical works, and contemporary pieces in tightly composed arrangements. This approach makes him a precursor to installation art and curatorial practices that foreground spatial relationships.
Rosso developed a compact repertoire of sculptural motifs such as "Bookmaker," "Enfant malade," and "Ecce Puer," which he continually reinterpreted. Each version differed slightly in material, color, or form, resisting the notion of a single, definitive work. These repetitions highlighted variation, process, and the transformation of form over time, concepts that later resonated with artists involved in seriality and conceptual art.
Rosso's work was exhibited during his lifetime, including at the Salon d'Automne in 1904, where it received critical attention. After his death in 1928, his influence persisted through artists such as Brâncuși and Giacometti. His legacy was revived in the 1950s and 1960s through retrospectives in the United States and re-evaluated in light of developments in postwar and contemporary art. His blending of sculpture, photography, and staging has influenced generations of artists exploring materiality, reproduction, and perception.
3. Kaari Upson, eleven, 2020, Kunstmuseum Basel, Purchase with funds from the Karl and Margrith Schaub-Tschudin Foundation and the purchase loan, Photo Credit : Max Ehrengruber
Dialogues with Modern and Contemporary artists
The second floor of the exhibition places Rosso's work in thematic dialogue with more than sixty artists. Rather than offering one-to-one comparisons, the exhibition identifies broader affinities that reveal the enduring relevance of Rosso’s methods and aesthetics. Each section unfolds around shared material strategies or conceptual premises.
In "Repetition and Variation," the focus is on artists who question the originality of artworks through repetition and transformation. Sherrie Levine’s photographic series after Degas, for example, raises questions about authorship and authenticity. These concerns echo Rosso’s own recursive approach to casting, where each version of a work such as "Enfant juif" becomes a variation in surface, tone, and form rather than a mere replica. Sidsel Meineche Hansen’s "Baby Mould" (2017), a CNC-milled plaster cast based on a commercially available devotional mold, confronts the industrialization of the body, intersecting with Rosso’s interest in fragile human forms shaped and reshaped through reproduction.
In "Process and Performance," Rosso’s working process, his visible seams, blurred contours, and fingerprints, is set in relation to artists who treat form as an unfolding action. Senga Nengudi’s "R.S.V.P." series, composed of stretched nylons weighted with sand, is both installation and documentation of bodily movement. Like Rosso’s casting process, these works remain open-ended and emphasize material behavior. Nearby, Ana Mendieta’s body-imprints in earth or blood resonate with Rosso’s notion of the figure as a trace, ephemeral, partial, and embedded in time. Rosso’s own photographic series, particularly his images of "Enfant malade," appear in this context less as records of static objects than as gestures of documentation, alteration, and performance.
The section "Touching, Embracing, Shaping" highlights affective materialism and the sculptural interpretation of intimacy. Rosso’s "Aetas aurea," showing a mother and child merging into one another through a cloud of wax, is shown near Alina Szapocznikow’s resin cast of her son’s head placed on a biscuit. The juxtaposition reinforces a shared engagement with the human figure as a locus of fragility, tenderness, and decay. Louise Bourgeois’ "Child Devoured by Kisses," a sculpture composed of tightly compacted forms, echoes Rosso’s blurred outlines, proposing maternal affection as a sculptural force that shapes and consumes simultaneously.
These thematic constellations do not aim to trace direct lines of influence but instead create a conceptual network in which Rosso’s ideas are refracted and expanded. His preoccupations with process, reproduction, fragility, and perception find renewed relevance in contemporary practices, reinforcing his position as a critical reference point in the history of modern and postmodern sculpture.
Medardo Rosso (1858–1928) was an Italian sculptor born in Turin and active mainly in Milan and Paris. He played a significant role in redefining modern sculpture around 1900, challenging traditional academic practices.
Conclusion
This retrospective repositions Medardo Rosso as a foundational figure not only for modern sculpture but for the expanded field of contemporary art. His experimental methods, his use of ephemeral materials, and his critical approach to display and documentation anticipated many strategies employed by artists today. By organizing the exhibition around thematic affinities rather than strict chronology, the curators demonstrate that Rosso’s innovations resonate well beyond his historical moment. The Kunstmuseum Basel succeeds not only in recovering Rosso’s legacy but in showing how his work continues to inform and challenge contemporary practices in sculpture, photography, and installation.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunstmuseum Basel
Date: 29.3.2025 - 10.8.2025
Curator: Heike Eipeldauer, Elena Filipovic
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunstmuseum Basel OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunstmuseum Basel
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Graben 8
CH-4010 Basel
Phone: +41 61 206 62 62
Fax: +41 61 206 62 52
Mail: info@kunstmuseumbasel.ch
© Lucas GASGAR / Lucas Art Talks 2025