Milan, street artist Ozmo dedicates a "monument" to the little girl bought by Montanelli

Ozmo (Gionata Gesi; Pontedera, 1975), one of the best-known and most appreciated street artists on the Italian scene, wanted to dedicate a “monument” to the 12-year-old Ethiopian girl who was bought by journalist Indro Montanelli during the African campaign in 1936, when Montanelli was a 27-year-old volunteer leading a battalion of ascari. The historical event came back into the news during protests by the Black Lives Matter movement, so much so that the monument to Montanelli located in the Porta Venezia gardens in Milan was daubed over the weekend: the journalist is blamed for performing an act that, if done in Italy, would have been considered reprehensible for a person of his social class and with his studies behind him, and for the fact that he has never regretted buying a 12-year-old girl (14 according to other interviews given by Montanelli) and having an affair with her against her will.

Ozmo’s “monument” of course is such according to the canons of street art: it is in fact a mural that reproduces the base of a public monument with an image of a little girl in Ethiopian clothing raising her right fist above it, in the typical gesture of activists of the Black Lives Matter movement and those who support protest by demonstrating. The mural was created in one of Milan’s most central and busy streets, Via Torino.

With his work, Ozmo has taken up the invitation launched last June 9 by writer Igiaba Scego, who in an article published inInternazionale had hoped that instead of removing the statue, artists would dedicate “a statue, a drawing, a memory to that distant child.” An appeal, that of Igiaba Scego, that we had also relaunched and advocated on our pages with an editorial by Federico Giannini.

Below are some images of the work.

Ozmo’s mural dedicated to the Ethiopian girl bought by Montanelli

Ozmo’s mural dedicated to the little Ethiopian girl bought by Montanelli

Ozmo’s mural dedicated to the little Ethiopian girl bought by Montanelli

Ozmo’s mural dedicated to the little Ethiopian girl bought by Montanelli

Milan, street artist Ozmo dedicates a "monument" to the little girl bought by Montanelli

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