Mattarella after Jorit: "art is free, that of dictatorships is fictitious and servile art"

He never mentioned Jorit during his speech, of course, but the broadside launched today by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella during his speech on the occasion of Women’s Day seemed to have a precise sender: there was talk of street art and art under dictatorships. It is therefore easy to imagine that the president wanted to comment on what happened the day before yesterday in Soči, where Neapolitan street artist Jorit, aka Ciro Cerullo, had his picture taken with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of one of his speeches during a youth forum. “To show in Italy that you are human like everyone else, that the propaganda they are spreading everywhere is not real,” Jorit said as he got up from his seat in the stands after Putin had finished speaking. A move orchestrated by Russian propaganda, according to many: it is very difficult for Italians to enter Russia today, and President Putin is virtually unapproachable. Let alone if a person can get off a stand and nonchalantly approach the Kremlin’s number one without anyone checking anything, or without the move being organized upstream. So much so that the reactions in Italy were not slow in coming: no shortage of insults on social media, invitations to move to Russia or to try to paint a mural depicting Anna Politkovskaya on the streets of Moscow in order to test all of Putin’s “humanity.” And harsh criticism from politicians as well: “useful idiot,” “propagandist,” and “mercenary” are just some of the definitions directed at Cerullo by party members.

Today, therefore, the intervention of Sergio Mattarella. The theme chosen by the Presidency of the Republic for Women’s Day 2024 was "women in art," to emphasize women’s contribution in imagination, creativity in the arts. Mattarella wanted to emphasize with some emphasis the contribution of female street art: “Let us face for a moment that form of manifestation of public enjoyment that we have just seen, represented by the so-called Street Art. We listened to Chiara Capobianco. I remember other Italian artists such as Alice Pasquini, Giovanna Pistone, Mp5, Ale Senso, to grasp the meaning of a continuous dialogue with the dimension of living. The history of mankind, even on the side of art, has instead developed, for a long time, in a male-dominated sense: this has caused civilization to lose invaluable resources of sensitivity and artistic value.”

And here Mattarella’s jab: “Art,” he said, “is also challenge, change, knowledge. Artists look far, beyond the veil of appearances; they foresee or anticipate changes, they offer incisive keys to interpret the world and its phenomena. Our Constitution states with effective simplicity: ’Art and science are free.’ Art, in fact, is freedom. Freedom to create, freedom to think, freedom from conditioning. In this attitude lies its revolutionary potential: and it is no accident that authoritarian regimes view artists with suspicion and watch over them spasmodically, spying on them, censoring them, even imprisoning them. Dictatorships try hard to promote a state art and culture, which is nothing but a fictitious, regime art and culture that rewards the servility of official singers and punishes and represses authentic artists.”

Servility ofofficial singers, in short: in regimes, art is not free. It is worrying that these attempts to penetrate Russian propaganda take place throughItaly and through an artist who, before earning a reputation as a pro-Putinist (this was already being said last summer, when Jorit went to Mariupol to paint a mural, moreover accused of plagiarism, that was supposed to depict “the suffering of the children of the Donbass who have grown up for eight years under Kiev bombs and with the fear of Nazi battalions”), nevertheless enjoyed some consideration. Italy, unfortunately, is often seen as theweak link of the West in supporting Ukraine and countering Russian propaganda. The data certify this: according to a recent report (February 2024) by the European Council on Foreign Relations, in fact, Italians are among the least vocal supporters of support for Ukraine (only 18 percent of our compatriots believe that Europe should support Ukraine to take back the territories occupied by Russia: Behind Italy only Greece and Hungary, both with 16 percent, percentages far from Sweden’s 50 percent, Portugal’s 48 percent, Poland’s 47 percent, but also France and Spain’s 35 percent and the average of 31 percent). It is natural, then, that Russian propaganda tries to appeal to countries where support for Ukraine is weakest.

Mattarella, for his part, has never stopped emphasizing the importance of supporting Ukraine. He did so even last Feb. 3 in Trent, greeting the mayor of Lviv, renewing to him “the feelings of friendship that have ancient and solid roots and that the dramatic consequences of the brutal invasion of Ukraine have further strengthened.” “The freedom, the independence of Ukraine are one with the founding values of Europe,” Mattarella had said last month. And a few days ago, on February 26, during his speech in Cyprus at a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides, Mattarella had been even more explicit: “Having peace and stability at heart, we spoke - I also made a mention of what is happening in Ukraine, two years after the Russian Federation’s unconscionable aggression against Ukraine - to reiterate, as the European Council did recently, full support for Ukraine, to reiterate how important it is to respect the territorial integrity, the independence, the dignity of every state. Because it is unthinkable that a stronger, larger neighboring country would want to impose its will and take territory from a smaller neighboring country. It is a general principle and the European Union is right to keep that commitment to support Ukraine firm.”

Countering Russian propaganda by addressing an unequivocal message about what it means for an artist to work in support of a regime is a way to give a concrete signal, and full support to Ukraine.

Mattarella after Jorit: "art is free, that of dictatorships is fictitious and servile art"

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