Easter week, back to Sardinia. Slow pace through Cagliari, resigned traffic, bright sky as always. I stop in front of the Palazzo della Regione. An automatic, almost unconscious gesture. Yet every time I get the same knot in my stomach.

Because there, embedded in the facade of the building on Via Roma, are some of the most powerful and forgotten public works on our island (and not only): the marble sculptures by Costantino Nivola, created between 1958 and 1965, entitled Mother Earth, Builder, Dancer of the Argia, Mother Bread. They are not simple figures: they seem to emerge from the walls and floors like archaic visions, suspended between the earth and the cosmos. They tell intimate stories of Sardinia – of daily gestures, of toil, of bonds – but inside those essential forms something deeper beats: the mystery of life itself, the origin of the world, as if those bodies were the first to emerge from the dust of time, bringing with them the secret of being born, of building, of being human.

And yet today they are there, silent, as if no one could read them anymore. No panels, at most a faded indication, but no useful trace for those who pass by distractedly and might ask: who made these works? What do they mean? Why are they here?

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Nivola is making himself heard again. He does so in an unexpected way: through an auction, in Marseille, on April 11. And it is not one of those bombastic auctions that you see on the cover, but something more subtle. A series of works on paper, never seen before, kept until now by the artist's family. As if they were notes, whispers, thoughts spoken in a low voice. But for this very reason, even more precious.

Looking at them, you almost feel like you are entering his studio, on tiptoe. Small sheets, with light outlines traced in pencil, or colored sketches in gouache. Not the monumental artist, but the man who thinks. Who feels. Who remembers.

Some compositions are made only of lines, nervous and rapid, like scribbles of a dream that does not want to be forgotten. Others explode with color, with red and green silhouettes that seem to dance or escape from something we do not know. There are human figures without faces, but full of presence. Bodies that seem to want to say "I was there too". The sign is light, but never casual. As if Nivola drew not only with his hand, but with his memory.

Then, among these sheets, a postcard appears. Not a real one, but something that looks like one. Drawn in pen and watercolor, full of addresses, stamps, writings, chaotic scenes of towns, people, cars, animals, impossible buildings. A Sardinian postcard, of course. But also a message for us. As if Nivola had sent it to us now, in 2025, from somewhere else that is neither New York nor Orani. A place where we can still laugh at our obsessions, our little daily dramas, but with affection. With that ironic and gentle tone that only those who love deeply can allow themselves.

It’s hard to describe the feeling that postcard gives. Because it seems to say: “I see you. And I understand you. But be careful: you are forgetting who you are.”

There is also a drawing that portrays a crowded terrace, with tables, people chatting, advertising signs, children, men in suits and women with their hair tied up. A banal scene? Maybe. But full of life. Of those common lives that art often ignores. Nivola, on the other hand, does not. He collects them, preserves them, transforms them into a story. And he dedicates them, with a very tender inscription, to his granddaughter.

Looking at these works today – so far from the spotlight, so intimate – is like receiving a coded message from a Sardinia that no longer knows how to communicate with itself. It is an invitation to remember that identity is not celebrated in official speeches, but in details. In care. In respect for those who have been able to tell us truthfully.

Because Nivola was not just a sculptor. He was a translator of worlds. He brought Sardinia into modernity without compromise. He made it speak to America, to contemporary art, to architecture, without ever making it postcard folklore. He was Sardinian to the last fiber, but universal in his gaze. And today, paradoxically, he is more listened to outside than inside the house.

The museum dedicated to him in Orani is an important garrison, but it cannot remain alone. We need more. We need a serious, widespread, ambitious project. One that involves schools, young people, artists, communities. One that gives Nivola back the place he deserves not only in art catalogues, but in the collective imagination of the island.

And if we don't know where to start, we could start from there, from the Palazzo della Regione. From those marbles set in cement, which today seem prisoners. Because the void around those works is not only physical, but cultural. It is the effect of forgetfulness, of art too often treated as wallpaper.

And so the question – postponed for too long – arises: shouldn’t we give those works back the dignity they deserve? Maybe move them. Let them breathe in a place where they can be seen, understood, loved?

Because if there is an artist who has been able to tell the world about Sardinia without ever betraying it, that is him, Antine.

Simone Falanca – writer and scholar

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