This female figurine, dating to the third millennium BC, is from Mehrgarh (present-day Pakistan), one of the most ancient archaeological sites in South Asia. The work, generously entrusted to the Center by the Musée Barbier-Mueller on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, finds a particular resonance in some fifteen sculptures by Roberto Cuoghi exhibited at the same time. Hybrid and deformed, these figures seem to belong to time immemorial. Cuoghi, who is passionate about ancient cultures, studied Assyrian rituals and the Assyrian language for two years and produced a monumental reproduction of a figurine of the Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu, held at the Musée du Louvre. The voluptuous forms of the Mehrgarh figurine, associated with the cult of fertility, stand in contrast to the truncated bodies created by Cuoghi, but all attest to the evocative force of a divine and ancestral form of representation.

Andrea Bellini, Director of Centre d’art contemporain