We’ve been waiting for the Barbarians for four decades, like we’ve been waiting for Godot.

Among them is Mattia Bonetti, who became One after sharing the stage with two.With all its paradoxes and oxymorons united and embraced, in complete exclusivity, Mattia Bonetti’s work has always been unclassifiable, and that’s what makes it so original.

The whimsy of a poet, blended with the rigour of a designer, cannot be tucked away in a dresser drawer with a filing cabinet. A cabinetmaker, received as if in an armchair, illuminated with powerful reflections in a mirror, Mattia Bonetti is no Narcissus.

His masks are proof. A delicate brutalist, a lyrical barbarian, a velvety primitive, a telluric ‘Satyricon’, whether he’s working bronze, beating iron or forging it, sculpting wood or sanding it, the man brilliantly breaks down a table of contents reminiscent of myths and legendary ornaments.

Between manifest pieces and gold leaf, between inspired gestures and adorable laconicism, here is a new play in sixteen previously unseen acts crafted by the elite of art’s artisans.

PIERRE LÉONFORTE