After five years of growing success of my domains/websites (record in December 2002) and following some suggestions by visitors with smaller monitors and/or resolutions, I decided to change the look and usability of the home page of this portal site (the old design remaining accessible) and to inaugurate, step by step, many new sections, planned since rather a long time. Today is the premiere of the new Fine Art section, starting with Sculpture. Hurry up then to the opening or vernissage of the exhibition!

Oronzo Renna was born in Italy, near Lecce, an ancient Greek and Roman city in Apulia, noted for its baroque architecture, in 1950. He came into contact with music very early in his life. And he does indeed consider himself also a musician, playing the guitar, the mandolin, the BluesHarp, the lute, and since a year also the piano. I wish you would be as lucky as I was a couple of times, listening to him and forgetting the world. He was also singing then. He had founded his first band at the age of 16. Already then he met local artists, had regular contact with them, and they stimulated his artistic interests. Shortly after, he committed himself to the movement of 1968. A technical training followed. After that: military service, a period with never ending harassment (his political activities were probably known to "them" from case numbers). Since he became 25, he extensively travelled Europe, Morocco, India, Australia, New Zealand. And a cosmopolitan he no doubt is! A cosmopolitan ~FREE SPIRIT~ with two national passports nevertheless (Italy and New Zealand).

About his further background, artistic and political, I would like to mention his intensive studies of the works of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, the Symbolists in general, J. L. Borges, E. M. Cioran, Brancusi, and, parallel to that, of most anarchist authors, from Malatesta to Stirner. Above all, his encounter, 25 years ago, with the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner represented a turning point in his life. Steiner's maxim "An Gottes Stelle den freien Menschen" was a significant statement to him. And Steiner's "Philosophie der Freiheit" for him a kind of bible of anarchism. Oronzo Renna does not aim at freedom, that would not be enough, but, as Rimbaud put it, at FREE FREEDOM! And: "Freedom is the supreme good only for those animated by the will to HERESY", as E. M. Cioran, his favourite and mine, wrote down. May I reveal that in his first-class library he has the rare works of this rare author in French, German and Italian!

Oronzo Renna is an autodidact, a self-educated person, someone who is finding his way through his talent alone and not with the help of some art academy he visited or other formal education. The same will be true of the artist I have planned to present next in this new section. And I think, somewhat specializing that way, though in a non-exclusive fashion, will very well fit into my freedom pages and benefit them. With Oronzo Renna we have a very individual individualist anarchist, with his very own brand of anarchism. And as you know, this site is publishing to the wide Internet "By Appointment to His Majesty the Individual"... :-)

Together with other artists, Oronzo Renna just had his first art gallery exhibition, which took place last month, December 1 to December 16, 2002, at the Depot Art Space, Devonport, Auckland. The exhibition was well received both by the public and the critics and the local paper had carried two articles ahead of the exhibition. A picture of the opening day can be found inside the Art section.

To better understand, appreciate and enjoy the sculptures you should know that the search for the material used, for the suitable object ("objet trouvé") is already an essential part of the creative act. A peculiarity of found objects lies in their combinative quality, allowing Oronzo Renna to combine the pieces and arrange them in a different context, so that the creation of a new and aesthetic art work can happen. The free combination awakens in Oronzo Renna the consciousness of his original nature, relieves him from constraints and allows him to discover his inner artistic potential, i.e. limitless creativity.

I forgot one thing: Oronzo Renna, being an artist through and through, is also a great cook (classic Italian cooking). If I could, I would hire him right away as my chef. (And as my interior decorator also; there is no end to his artistry.) I apologize therefore to my guests at this online exhibition for the fact that there is no buffet.

The booty and beauty is here.