Don't Kill, the large four-handed installation by Isgrò and Botta for the 75th anniversary of the Italian Constitution

To celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Italian Constitution, the installation Don’t Kill was inaugurated at MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, a large-scale project commissioned from two great exponents of contemporary culture, Emilio Isgrò and Mario Botta. The installation is in fact the result of their unprecedented collaboration.

DoNot Kill is composed of a large work by Emilio Isgrò, a monumental bas-relief in Sinai stone articulated in eleven elements, and an architecture in cedar of Lebanon designed by Mario Botta and placed in the large MAXXI square. Emilio Isgrò’s work seeks to reflect on the theme of the principles of social coexistence that underlie all constitutional charters. He re-proposes the biblical tables of the Ten Commandments, interpreted as the moral foundation of civil society, on the inscriptions of which he has intervened by erasing, a characteristic feature of his production for almost sixty years, leaving in evidence only the fifth commandment: DO NOT KILL. A fundamental message, which today is increasingly urgent to express in all the languages of the world. On the eleven pairs of stone tablets, whose shape follows that of classical iconography, the commandments have been translated into as many languages to make the message of peace increasingly universal. They are engraved in red “the color of blood and resurrection,” as Isgrò himself writes, so “erasure is not a destructive act. It is a saying no in order to say yes to the things that matter, it is an element of reflection.”

Together with Botta’s large circular Pavilion, Isgrò’s erased panels create a unicum in which art and architecture are in close dialogue. Botta’s Pavilion, consisting of twenty-one arches over eight meters high to create a powerful and iconic space, is made of wood from the salvage of plants cut in private gardens or fallen as a result of weather phenomena.

“As an artist, I have always worked with a thousand open and outstretched hands-those of the public, those of the critics-supporting me in the most difficult moments of my cultural and creative endeavors. Even the critics who were less affectionate toward me helped me, since I turned their erasures into opportunities for growth, whether their opinions were founded or unfounded. This is the deep meaning of my erasure. To say no to the death of man in order to say a powerful yes to life,” said Emilio Isgrò. “Not easily aligned as an artist (and for this I regret) I did not hope that one day I would find a friend, a wonderful traveling companion who would allow me to finally work ’four-handedly,’ putting aside for once the sad Narcissus that we artists carry within us because of our loneliness and insecurity. The name of this friend, architect Mario Botta, was proposed to me by MAXXI. It was just the name I wanted: since for at least thirty years the Swiss architect and I had been wishing each other at every meeting to do something serious together. I had my idea ready, he had his ready. They combined together as in a cold fusion that of sacredness has only the love for art and for the Republican Constitution that we are invited to celebrate. The commandment ’Thou shalt not kill’ is more precious than the others in a world where killing does not even seem like a crime. And it applies to everyone, starting with the public who sometimes rely more on their guts than their heads. But it mainly applies to us artists, writers, musicians and architects. There is no need to kill to reaffirm, today and always, the reasons for art and culture. This is the commandment that I like to share with Mario Botta, who, upon just touching it, effortlessly erases the weight of matter.”

“The collaboration with artist Emilio Isgrò came to consolidate a relationship of friendship and esteem that has accompanied our frequentation for several years,” said Mario Botta. “Of Isgrò, I have always been intrigued and fascinated by his expressive register: DELETE TO EVIDENCE! In response to MAXXI’s invitation - to design a work to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Italian Constitution - we did not talk for long, each of us, through our own language, came up with an idea - meeting pavilion and tables of the law - that found an immediate mutual interest, with few doubts, much complicity and the creative pleasure proper to a ’noble’ cause, perhaps even opportune in these troubled times of our history. The tablets of the law inspired by Moses and written on Mount Sinai still preserve the relevance of the commandment DO NOT KILL, a basic principle of civilized living. Bringing out in the symbolic landscape of the different languages of the peoples scattered over the Earth the admonition DO NOT KILL seemed to us a way to bring our commitment back to urgent relevance.”

The installation was made with the support of the National Anniversaries Mission Structure of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. It was inaugurated on Friday, October 27, in the presence of President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano. On this occasion, President Mattarella awarded MAXXI with a Medal of the President of the Republic.

“I am grateful to the masters Isgrò and Botta for this powerful and necessary project, which amplifies a primary imperative, now more urgent than ever to reiterate: DO NOT KILL. The most solemn of ethical and moral obligations and an imperative principle underlying our Constitution,” commented MAXXI Foundation President Alessandro Giuli. “The installation Do Not Kill will enter the Museum’s Collection, the heritage of all Italians. Hosted in the Alighiero Boetti Square, where hundreds of people will be able to discover it every day, it will be exhibited again in other venues and institutions so that its universal commandment of peace will continue to spread.”

Don't Kill, the large four-handed installation by Isgrò and Botta for the 75th anniversary of the Italian Constitution

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