Artemisia goes to Sanremo: a modest copy of one of her paintings at the Festival. But the controversy continues

A copy of Artemisia Gentileschi ’s Judith with the Handmaid displayed in the foyer of Sanremo ’s Ariston Theater on the occasion of the 2024 edition of the Italian Song Festival. The painting, which reproduces Artemisia’s well-known work preserved at the Pitti Palace in Florence, was pulled from the storage rooms of the Strada Nuova Museums in Genoa and welcomes the public and singers at the entrance to the Ariston: it is an initiative of the Region of Liguria that basically replicates what was done last year, when a modest 17th-century copy of a self-portrait by Rubens was brought to the Sanremo Festival to promote the exhibition at the Ducal Palace. Same script this year: to launch the exhibition on Artemisia Gentileschi, a copy, again of modest artistic value, of Artemisia’s painting ends up in Sanremo.

For the Region of Liguria, which organized this exhibition, it is a “reminder of the highly successful exhibition dedicated to the Caravaggesque painter at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa and a message to reiterate through art, even to the general public of the Festival, such an important theme as combating violence against women.” And indeed, posts of the competing singers posing in front of the painting are already pouring in on social media: Annalisa, Fiorella Mannoia, Paola and Chiara, Francesco Renga, all taking photos and videos of themselves with the work in the background. “A few hours after it was set up, the Artemisia painting has already become the superhost of the Sanremo Festival,” says Regione Liguria President Giovanni Toti, “Widespread culture, capable of reaching as many people as possible, is one of the goals of this administration. If you then add to this the transmission of an important message, such as the one against violence against women, the result is extraordinary. That is why we chose to bring Artemisia to San Remo: the stars inside the Ariston who are taking pictures with this masterpiece will help us in our mission to spread culture as a carrier of beauty and positive messages.”

Still, the exhibition (and the subsequent display of the painting in San Remo) does not stop raising controversy, after several associations asked for changes to the itinerary because of the way the rape suffered by the painter is recounted: a tendency toward spectacularization that was not appreciated by many, just as underappreciated were certain gadgets on sale at the bookshop (for example, T-shirts with phrases of the rapist Agostino Tassi).

According to the associations Mi Riconosci and Non una di meno, the display of the copy of the painting is not a message against violence against women, but a “consecration” of the spectacularization of rape. “So we wonder why, despite the fact that the protests against the exhibition have been going on for months and the recent publication of an open letter that is having a very wide following,” says Eva Ferrara of Non una di meno Genova, “the institutions involved do not take responsibility for changing their approach, but even continue to exploit this morbid narrative to promote the exhibition.”

And just a few days earlier, several activists and associations had published an open letter calling for the removal of some gadgets and the closure of the “rape room,” the one in which, with the presence of an unmade bed and the broadcasting of an actress’s voice reading excerpts from Artemisia’s court deposition during the trial against her rapist, the artist’s rape is in fact re-enacted. Also contested is the presence in the bookshop of the book La notte tu mi fai impazzire. Erotic Feats of Agostino Tassi, a painter by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, which, according to the signers of the open letter, “manipulates and romanticizes Tassi’s violent conduct.” The task of culture, wrote the signers of the letter, “should be to elevate the spirit, narrate complexity and stimulate new reflections. This responsibility cannot be delegated to a private company, Arthemisia, which, moreover, strenuously defends this installation, nor to spectacularist curatorial approaches (among the curators is the art historian and art consultant for the City of Genoa, Anna Orlando).” Anna Orlando herself, by the way, has publicly distanced herself from the staging, despite calling the exhibition “beautiful” in a number of posts on her social accounts.

However, “None of the institutions involved in the exhibition, the City of Genoa and the Region of Liguria,” says Ludovica Piazzi, an activist from Mi Riconosci, “has seen fit to make a change of pace; on the contrary, Rai and the Ariston, after two months of protests, have seen fit to rush to the rescue of the exhibition and the private company that organizes it, providing a spectacular flywheel of promotion,” adds Ludovica Piazzi of Mi Riconosci.

Then, this morning, the latest development: the newly appointed director of the Ducal Palace, Ilaria Bonacossa, let it be known this morning that the gadgets have been eliminated in agreement with Arthemisia, the company organizing the exhibition, while as for the “rape room,” Bonacossa said that it must be the public’s choice whether or not to enter. Accordingly, he let it be known that there will be changes to the route to close the room, anticipate it with a disclaimer warning about its contents, and put the public in a position to decide whether to enter or continue further. And he wanted to emphasize that “it is very dangerous for a cultural project to be changed because it is asked”: the institution’s task is, if anything, according to Bonacossa, to listen. Will Palazzo Ducale’s decisions be enough to quell the controversy whose echo has now reached as far as Sanremo?

Artemisia goes to Sanremo: a modest copy of one of her paintings at the Festival. But the controversy continues

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