MANN, mosaic featuring Medusa that inspired Lennon memorial in Central Park goes back on display

On Oct. 5, 2022, sixty years after the release of The Beatles’ Love me do, the Medusa-head mosaic that decorated the House of the Citarista in Pompeii will return to public display after many years at the MANN-National Archaeological Museum in Naples. The large mosaic, measuring about two meters by two meters in area, represented the opus tessellatum floor decoration of the Pompeian domus and is said to have inspired the motifs of the mosaic of the memorial dedicated to John Lennon in New York’s Central Park.

"How many of Central Park’s visitors know that the famous Imagine mosaic in memory of John Lennon, one of New York’s icons, is a gift from the city of Naples and was inspired by an artifact in the MANN? This beautiful story, which was told to me by Professor Michelangelo Iossa, deserves to be remembered on the day the Mosaic with Medusa returns to the collection from the House of the Citarista (also a sign!), and known to those who will admire it," commented MANN Director Paolo Giulierini. “Not only because it tells a lot about the bond between Naples and New York, the strength of Lennon’s message sixty years after the birth of the Beatles and their myth, Yoko Ono’s artist sensibility. But also of the sense of a museum that wants to connect ancient and present through emotions and bridges between cultures.”

On Dec. 8, 1980, at 10:50 p.m., returning to his luxurious Manhattan residence, John Lennon was gunned down by Mark David Chapman. It was the New York City municipal government that awarded the musician the prestigious “Handel Medallion” award, but more importantly it dedicated an entire area of Central Park, called Strawberry Fields, to Lennon.

It was Yoko Ono, Lennon’s companion and artist, who became the promoter of a special memorial: alongside different botanical species from as many as one hundred and twenty-one countries around the world, she had a large mosaic created by the masters of Studio Cassio in Rome, which was donated to the New York City Council by the City of Naples in the early 1980s. The work recalls the ancient iconographic model: from the artifact in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the large round with black and white bipartite scales with an illusionistic effect appears re-enacted, and in place of the Gorgon’s head was inserted the symbolic inscription"Imagine," the most famous song written by Lennon.

Michelangelo Iossa recounts that the mosaic was made by Antonio Cassio with the contribution of his brother Fabrizio, and that it was the focus of an intense correspondence between Yoko Ono Lennon and Giuseppe Castaldo, then head of the Naples Tourist Board and deus-ex-machina of the entire operation. Financed by the Naples tourist board, the mosaic was proposed by Castaldo at a historical moment when the link between Naples, New York and the figurative arts was experiencing one of its most intense seasons. Yoko Ono inaugurated construction work on the nature oasis dedicated to her partner in 1984, right alongside Giuseppe Castaldo.

In 2023 Yoko Ono will celebrate her 90th birthday. And on October 5, MANN will inaugurate the film festival The Other Japan, precisely in the name of Yoko Ono and John Lennon.

Photo: MANN - Archaeological Museum of Naples

.

MANN, mosaic featuring Medusa that inspired Lennon memorial in Central Park goes back on display

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.