This Time, It Wasn't the Usual Pulcinella Farce
A large-scale installation between love, irony, and scandal. Gaetano Pesce bids farewell to Naples with a monumental work that everyone agrees on... only when it comes to the artist's absence.
Piazza Municipio finds no peace. Still warm are the embers of controversy (literally) from Michelangelo Pistoletto's Venus of the Rags, and now a new spectacle of criticism and mockery arrives with Gaetano Pesce's latest installation.
We are not talking about Heidegger's ear nor Michelangelo's hand, but rather their opposites: Gaetano Pesce's new work appears weak in aesthetics, crude in execution, and lacking in concept and vision. The artist's intentions, who passed away on April 3, 2024, seem lost, unrecognizable, and distant from his history. Perhaps this detachment is because Pesce was unable to personally oversee the creation of the sketches for this installation, which he had been working on since 2022 and held particularly dear. The unintended irony makes it a true ‘Pulcinella farce,’ even though it is far from the distinctive vision of the world-renowned artist, architect, and designer. Creating the work without Pesce’s contribution was like giving an Iron Maiden song to Elio e le Storie Tese: the result seems far different from what was imagined. Family, curators, and the fabrication studio were flooded with questions, but, alas, the answers are unconvincing..
The work, on display until December 19, couldn't avoid stirring discussion due to its suggestive form. Like Pistoletto's Venus, this Pulcinella has also garnered its fair share of criticism, but it has also captured the curious and amused gazes of tourists who, between a selfie and a joke, didn’t miss the chance to immortalize the installation. Luca Bertozzi, Pesce's collaborator, confirmed that the work was faithfully created following the artist's instructions, despite some remarks about the “missing buttons” and, of course, the now infamous “phallic profile” that has driven the web crazy.
"Tu si ‘na cosa grande”, unveiled in Piazza Municipio, immediately caught the public's attention, sparking comments ranging from sarcastic to amused. Curated by Silvana Annichiarico, the work, part of the Napoli Contemporanea project, is Pesce’s final tribute to the city. Consisting of two sculptures in dialogue, the installation merges Neapolitan tradition with his unmistakable aesthetic: on one side, a 12-meter-high metal cylinder, a stylized reinterpretation of Pulcinella's costume, and on the other, a 5-meter red heart pierced by an arrow. The love for Naples that the work was supposed to express? Visitors can’t be blamed if they can’t find it.
There were also controversies about the costs: 225,381 euros for 71 days of exhibition. Some thought it was too much, but perhaps the original sin was that the work... cost too little! Pesce's last work deserved much more, not only in terms of budget but also in terms of artistic care, attention to detail, and fidelity to the poetic vision of the creative mind, sadly no longer with us.
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