Contemporary art at the heart of a city’s cultural debate. A community that suddenly wonders about the presence of an outcrop sculpture in its main square, next to the towers of a castle from the ‘200. It happened in these months in Naples, opening new and unexplored pages, sowing doubts and uncertainties.
Theme of discord, a totemic version of the Pulcinella by Gaetano Pesce, an extreme tribute to the mask of a city he loved. The designer is certainly not a carneades. He has been for years a definite international reference point. He lived in New York for long time building his personality through constant creative activism, he has exhibited in the world’s greatest museums: the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Big Apple, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, to name just a few.
He was also an attentive, passionate, provocative sculptor through many years of experimentation. In short, Pesce is certainly a high-ranking artistic figure, which has left us only few months ago. His homage to Pulcinella, in fact, what some indicate as his spiritual testament, had a different appeal, a dress made of buttons ordered in a single row, a wide open lapel, easily recognizable, a long white shirt that expands in contact with the ground. An almost pleasant sculpture in its dynamic.
In Naples, however, there has been a re-edition, a revival, something absolutely different that lends itself to the taste of irony and desecration. Who and why wanted to demystify the Pesce sculpture remains a mystery. But there is a broader theme. After the fire of La Venere degli Stracci by Pistoletto and the controversies related to the totem entitled Tu si ‘na cosa grande there is sincerely to reflect on the relationship between Naples and contemporary art.
It is felt, in the light of recent months, a discomfort, a conflict, an embarrassment never breathed before. In a city that has offered the world its art underground and the great contemporary installations by Mimmo Paladino, Rebecca Horn and Jannis Kounellis in Piazza Plebiscito. Realities that, even through wise plays of light, decorated that square.
The reinterpretation of Gaetano Pesce’s Pulcinella does not furnish, does not impose its presence and, sincerely, does not warm hearts. Seeing the embarrassed assaults of the intellectual world, the polemic has therefore become social, simply popular, the daughter of a city that still knows the taste and charm of irony.
