Technology into myth: Eduardo Paolozzi’s artistic work

Abstract

Eduardo Paolozzi, a British artist of Italian origin, began his artistic career in the so-called British Pop Art movement with collages derived from North American popular
culture, its everyday objects, advertisements and magazines, using monsters and robots from science fiction alongside characters like Mickey Mouse, as well as images of radios
and space rockets. Later he developed his career as a sculptor, producing works in bronze, to some of which he gave the names of figures from classical mythology (Jason, Daedalus, Cyclops). These sculptures were created from a conglomerate of parts of machines and rubbish,
which he subsequently cast in bronze. The resulting figures reflect the interest of the artist in the idea of the fusion of man and machine, although in the end they are neither
men nor machines. Some of the objects which constitute these sculptures come from contemporary technology (radios, transistors, motors), so that these technological products become artists’ materials: this is a sculptural technique known as Brutalism.