Où la lampe passe, le mineur doit passer

Patinated bronze, lost wax casting
Ø cm 200 h. cm 270
Le Bois du Cazier, Marcinelle – Belgium, 2006

“Où la lampe passe, le mineur doit passer” is a powerful work, commissioned to the artist to honor the memory of the miners who died in August 1956 in Marcinelle. The drama of the Bois du Cazier that emerged from the womb of the earth gave the artist the idea of ​​creating a bronze sphere of about three meters in diameter, the globe, with a large ravine that plunges into its bowels. With its meaning, this creation has a universal significance, far beyond the Marcinelle tragedy: it symbolizes not only the work at the mines, but also the wound that is the migration. On top of the sculpture, next to the small migrant houses, the house takes its place at the foot of a tree that evokes the return to the country.

Jean-Louis Delaet, Director of the “Bois du Cazier” Museum

“Antonio Nocera has well represented, in his great work, the shocking charge of the dramatic fire, which breaks trough the bowels of the earthly sphere. And at the same time he managed to convey – in the long flight of the swallows, that are free and without borders – the painful message, but pervaded with hope and life, which comes from the tragedy of Marcinelle. “

Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Italian Republic

© Antonio Nocera – All rights reserved.