The skeleton of a boat at the Royal Expiatory Chapel in Monza: it is the site-specific work of Angelo Caprotti

A boat in the garden of the Royal Expiatory Chapel in Monza, a site of the Ministry of Culture managed by the Regional Directorate National Museums Lombardy: it is the site-specific work by Monza artist Angelo Caprotti (Monza, 1959) entitled La Rotta (2024). The work, which can be seen free of charge until September 30, 2024, is placed in front of the entrance to the crypt, in the garden, with the prow facing north: it is the skeleton of a boat, composed of several pieces of wood from shipwrecked boats assembled with others recovered from landfills. It represents a cry: to remember all the forgotten migrants who met their deaths off the Mediterranean coast. The Expiatory Chapel was commissioned by Victor Emmanuel III, son and successor of Italy’s King Umberto I, to commemorate the site where his father was killed in 1900. Angelo Caprotti with La Rotta wants to trigger a reflection on the meaning of remembrance and the right to dignity of all human beings, comparing King Umberto I and the many dead to whom we cannot even give a name.

The initiative is part of M@D - Monza Arte Diffusa, promoted by the City of Monza in collaboration with LeoGalleries.

“The Regional Directorate National Museums Lombardy,” says director Rosario Maria Anzalone, “is pleased to collaborate with local institutions and to participate in this important initiative of the city of Monza, which is now in its third edition. Projects like this represent an opportunity to enhance the role of cultural heritage as an incisive and operative category in contemporary societies. It is thus possible to bring new audiences closer to our sites, offering those who already know them the chance to rediscover them in a new light.”

“Contemporary art,” continues the director of the Royal Expiatory Chapel Giuseppina Di Gangi, “can help us reread places of culture, art and memory, enriching them with ever-new meanings. In this case, Caprotti succeeds in his intention to make us reflect, working by antithesis, juxtaposing the history of the monument with one of the great themes of current events.”

“The Expiatory Chapel of Monza returns, with our great appreciation,” says M@D Monza Arte Diffusa curator Matteo Galbiati, "to welcome the M@D project, reconfirming the openness toward contemporary art that here, in a place of memory and pain with very strong suggestions, can further increase and amplify its meanings. The artist Angelo Caprotti with La Rotta does not fail in his commitment to germinate in the observer a profound reflection not only on the meaning of what is seen, but above all on the warning that the work holds about the times we are all living. Amid drifts that disperse minds and disorient men, a just course is still possible, so that not only the lives of others but also our own will be saved."

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Photo by Alessandro Sartori

The skeleton of a boat at the Royal Expiatory Chapel in Monza: it is the site-specific work of Angelo Caprotti

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