Naples, Pistoletto's Venus of rags will be remade. The artist donates it to the city

Michelangelo Pistoletto ’s monumental version of Venus of rags will be remade after the fire that destroyed it this summer, and the work will be donated by the artist to the city. The work will be reinstalled in City Hall Square, in the same place where the burned work stood. The date to mark on the calendar is January 22, 2024: by that day the work will be reinstalled in its designated location.

The press conference was attended by the Mayor of the City of Naples, Gaetano Manfredi, artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, the Mayor’s advisor and curator of the “Napoli Contemporanea 2023” project, Vincenzo Trione, and the Vice President of “Altra Napoli EF,” Antonio Lucidi. “Thanks to the public art projects we are implementing, Naples is increasingly an open-air, democratic, free museum that can be enjoyed by everyone,” said Mayor Gaetano Manfredi. “Even after a difficult time, the city has shown that it is able to pick itself up and look forward. The reconstruction of Pistoletto’s work represents the city’s ability to regenerate itself through beauty, art and the positive energies of its citizens. The new Venus reinforces Naples’ vocation for the contemporary and is therefore part of a larger program that aims to be an example of how to build the city, finding original forms of urban regeneration capable of involving the entire community, always with a view to social inclusion without forgetting the fragile.”

Last July’s event, the artist himself made known, was the symbolic element that inspired him in the “regeneration” of the project. “A path through which pain was transformed into healing. Venus was not annihilated, but regenerated in the same place,” says Michelangelo Pistoletto. “An episode of degeneration happened that triggered important dynamics of reflection and confrontation on the devastations of our days. For this reason, my feeling for Naples has remained unchanged: it will be a great joy for everyone to have transformed suffering into a new opportunity for vitality and rebirth.”

The future donation thus confirms Pistoletto’s bond with the city and reaffirms the artist’s desire to promote art as an educational tool, a driving force for social transformation, especially in fragile contexts.

“A painful, dramatic event, perhaps destined to enter the history books of contemporary art in the future,” says councilor and curator Vincenzo Trione, who precisely as curator was involved in the profect. “Since the fire last July, wounds, traces, ruins have remained. Michelangelo Pistoletto has decided not to remove this trauma, designing a new ’Venus of rags,’ which holds the wreckage that survived the fire. And, together, he chose to make his gesture live beyond the work itself. By donating the monumental version of the Venus to the city of Naples. And by promoting a crowdfunding activity, for humanitarian associations engaged in the treatment of hardship and deviance. A way to show that sometimes art can achieve its deepest and most political goals when it lives beyond itself and spreads into reality, into our lives.”

In fact, to confirm the link between the work and the community, the City of Naples had initiated a crowdfunding campaign called Ricostruiamola! entrusted to the Altra Napoli EF association, which received support from many citizens. However, the artist decided to rebuild the work at his own expense and then donate it city. The funds raised from the Reconstruct it! campaign, in agreement with each donor, will then be allocated to associations with social purposes in the area.

“Altra Napoli EF, also accepting the invitation of the City of Naples, became the promoter of a fundraising campaign that involved first of all citizens, and then private entities and cultural institutions,” says Vice President Antonio Lucidi. “Following Maestro Pistoletto’s generous offer to donate the work to the city, and the proposal to allocate the sums raised to two Third Sector entities, Altra Napoli suggested - subject to the donors’ explicit endorsement - two significant entities that have been committed for years to the last of the last. These are the ”La Scintilla“ Association, which works for the protection, accompaniment, socialization and serene autonomy of people with intellectual disabilities, and the Lazzarelle Social Cooperative, committed to the recovery, through reintegration into qualified work projects, of women afflicted by the detention regime who want to be active protagonists of their change.”

Naples, Pistoletto's Venus of rags will be remade. The artist donates it to the city

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