2022
Divine Triptych
A triptych collage reinterpreting the Divine Comedy in an ironic key w/ contemporary figures.
“If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?”
– Boethius
Divine Triptych is a 210 x 105 cm artwork I made on commission in which I was asked for graphic work to celebrate the seven hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death. It’s a collage that reinterprets the Divine Comedy in a contemporary and ironic key. I cast myself in the guise of a contemporary Dante and used my arms to symbolise the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise with popular and universally known gestures.
Divine Triptych (2022) – Digital mockup.
Around my arms I placed my damned and my saints – or those waiting to become one. From Harvey Weinstein to Elon Musk and social media, to Gino Strata, more than a hundred figures placed between old virtues and new vices make up my personal otherworldly theatre and invite the audience to imagine their own.
Divine Triptych (2022) – Triptych total.
The panels are autonomous but structurally interdependent and conceptually connected; there are, for example, some figures that appear simultaneously in the Inferno and in the Paradise. That’s because I don’t comply to a Manichean worldview but I rather see our existence often unwillingly delirious and as based on ambivalence.
Figures in the Inferno:
Mario Balotelli, Harvey Weinstein, Lu Zhihao (Chinese fattest kid), Achille Lauro (Italian dramaticaly overrated trapper), Valerio Fioravanti (Italian right-wing 70s terrorist), Leonarda Cianciulli (Italian young mothers’ killer), Erica e Omar (Erica’s mother killers), Giuda, conspirationists/anti-Vaxx/anti-science people, KAWS, Cryptopunks (NFT), Giovanni Brusca (Most infamous Mafia killer), Fabrizio Corona (Italian gossip agent and mythomaniac), Lele Mora (Italian TV agent and Mussolini nostalgic), Emilio Fede (super-biased journalist and Berlusconi’s shameless acolyte), Michela Murgia (Italian far-left wing activist, ideologue and intellectual; half of her is in Paradise), Jordan Perterson (Famous Canadian clinical psychologist and influential liberal intellectual; half of him is in Paradise), HAL 9000 (half of it is in Paradise) Wanna Marchi (Italian charismatic TV-scammer), Mago Otelma (TV-oracle), Giucas Casella (TV-hypnotist), Gerione (Dante and Virgilio mythological monster-vehicle throughout the Inferno), Paul Marcinkus (the so called “God’s banker”), Bernie Madoff, Marco Travaglio (Italian hyper-biased and justicialist journalist), Piergiorgio Odifreddi (Italian mathematician and science-populariser with an obsession with Christian religion he does not really understand), Massimo Mazzuco (Italian self-professed journalist, the king of conspirationists), Andreas Lubitz (German Wing’s suicidal pilot), Elisabeth Holmes (American scam health start-upper).
Figures in the Purgatory:
Myself, Chiara Ferragni, Fedez (Chiara Ferragni’s husband) Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. Social media camouflaged: Netflix, Glovo, Twitch, Only Fans, Microsoft, Google, Playstation, Tinder, Uber, Amazon
Figures in the Paradise:
Pasolini, Callas, Piero Giorgio Tondelli (Italian 80s writer of the underground scene), David Bowie, Francesco Totti (most famous AS Roma soccer player), Marylin Monroe, Greta Thumberg, Andras Arato (most famous living meme), Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin (mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developers) Sven Marquard (most famous Berghain’s bouncer/selector), Pope Francis, Costantino della Gherardesca (Italian TV-host, author, and intellectual beyond his own intention) (Italian far-left wing activist, ideologue and intellectual; half of her is in Inferno), Jordan Perterson (Famous Canadian clinical psychologist and influential liberal intellectual; half of him is in Inferno) Vaccini mRna, Tyson, Gino Strada, Arthur Russel, Ipersfera, HAL 9000, Neil Armstrong, LGBTQ+ flag, S.O.P.H.I.E, the Moon, Gino de Dominicis, Nyan Cat (most famous GIG and NFT).
The collage triptych was exhibited in October 2022 during an ‘open house’ event in collaboration with the international real estate agency Engels & Völkers.