Pinuccio Sciola, sculptor of singing stones, dies at 74

Pinuccio Sciola, the Sardinian artist known worldwide for his 'singing stones,' died in Cagliari in 2016 at age 74 after a recurrence of cancer. Born in San Sperate in 1942, he created the first open-air museum in Sardinia, covering his hometown with murals and building a megalithic sculpture park. Trained at the Salzburg Academy under masters like Siqueiros, Kokoschka, and Vedova, he developed a technique to make stone produce sound. His works were installed at the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, the Parco della Musica in Rome (chosen by Renzo Piano), the Basilica of San Saturno in Cagliari, and he performed at Santa Croce in Florence before Michelangelo's tomb. His stones traveled to Berlin, Havana, Budapest, Paris, Mexico City, Barcelona, Stuttgart, and Shanghai. He also created sets for the Teatro Lirico's production of Turandot, the most attended in Cagliari. Despite international acclaim, Sciola felt undervalued in Sardinia, where no institution held a retrospective and a mural of his in Piazza Repubblica was chiseled away after thirty years. Critic Gillo Dorfles described his stones as evoking a sacred event. Sciola ran a sculpture school, workshops, and festivals, and kept an open house in San Sperate.