Michelangelo Pistoletto and his Venus of rags set on fire in Naples: the concept of works of art does not die in flames

Michelangelo Pistoletto, the father of “Venus in rags” has just learned that his work placed in the Piazza del Municipio in Naples has been set on fire. His voice is firm. He admits: «My collaborators were in tears this morning. I don’t cry, I rationalize right away. I think and say only that with violence nothing is achieved. However, this fire scares me because it reflects the dramatic situation of our time”.

Master what was your first reaction this morning?
“A huge regret. I didn’t cry like the people who materially built it, but I am saddened: despite knowing very well that beyond its physical representation and the economic damage, the concept of the work of art certainly does not die just because the flames they destroyed it.”

What do you see behind this gesture?
“A brutal mentality. Which also attacks a work that creates a synthesis between extreme beauty and rejection, giving a third life to waste. Once the rags were burned and instead of recycling them Co2 was created. These vandals have recondemned rags to their first destiny far from even an environmentalist logic, of giving life back to things. Venus is a maximum symbol of regeneration».
He learned that it may even have been a social competition: a crazy challenge would have been launched on the web to whoever arrives first to set it on fire.
“I know now from her. And I must tell you that none of us thought that the “Venus of rags” could attract vandals. Otherwise maybe we would have opted for a bronze version or we would have at least protected it with barriers. It is a living work and it had to remain so, in contact with the people».

You have an ancient and fantastic relationship with Naples, the mayor has said he will ask you to redo the work in another square. Agree?
«If they ask me, of course I will. It took us a year to make and assemble it. But a second installation should be faster».
Lia Rumma, his gallerist, despite being saddened, said that this destruction is still preferable to indifference. Not that you praised vandals, of course, but in a very lofty and perhaps divisive philosophical key, you explained that it is even sadder when art generates indifference.
«I believe that a civil protest would have been preferable: art is always ready to discuss and question itself. As my work on the Third Paradise teaches us, from a conflict, two worlds at opposite extremes can generate a third exit, so that from creation we pass to recreation. From the ashes, on the other hand, nothing is reborn».