(Rome) The Venus with Rags, one of the best-known sculptures by contemporary Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, was destroyed on Wednesday in Naples by an arson fire, authorities said, who arrested a young man 32 year old homeless man.
The ten-meter high installation, which represents a statue of the Roman goddess of beauty, love and fertility facing a large pile of colored clothes thrown on the ground, was in the open air near of the town hall, where it had been installed on June 28 in the presence of the mayor and the artist.
The mayor of the southern metropolis, Gaetano Manfredi, said the fire on Wednesday at dawn was “an act of great violence that leaves us speechless”, and promised that the facility would be rebuilt.
Michelangelo Pistoletto was “filled with bitterness and hurt” by this act of “vandalism”, added Mr. Manfredi after speaking with the artist, who wanted this fire to be “interpreted by us as a (chance for) a new beginning”.
Passers-by laid flowers and notes next to the ashes of the installation: “May from your ashes a better city be reborn,” says one such post, quoted by the daily Il Corriere della Sera.
After reviewing footage from neighborhood surveillance cameras, police arrested a 32-year-old homeless man on suspicion of arson and destroying artwork, according to Il Corriere.
There are several versions of the Venus of the Rags, which juxtaposes an emblematic figure of classical culture and beauty with the detritus of contemporary society, in various museums around the world.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, 90, is considered one of the major representatives of the Italian artistic movement Arte Povera. His works have been exhibited in New York, London and Paris.
