Protest at Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition: paint on the ground and blacked-out paintings

Protest yesterday morning in Genoa, at Palazzo Ducale, in the rooms that house the exhibition on Artemisia Gentileschi (here our review), which has been the subject of lively controversy in recent weeks because of some elements of the itinerary contested by feminist movements (such as the room that evokes the rape of the painter, or the presence of gadgets with phrases of her rapist Agostino Tassi, or the sale at the bookshop of the book La notte tu mi fai impazzire - Erotic exploits of Agostino Tassi, painter by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco). Some activists from Bruciamo tutto, a movement “of liberation from the patriarchal system,” as it calls itself, born in November 2023 in the wake of Giulia Cecchettin’s feminicide, broke into the exhibition, where they first covered three paintings by Agostino Tassi featured in the exhibition with large black sheets, after which they spilled red paint on the ground, and wetting their hands with the paint they imprinted their fingerprints on the exhibition panels and the captions of the paintings.

“Yesterday during our action,” said the Burn Everything activists via their social channels, “we blacked out the paintings of Artemisia’s rapist, displayed next to hers, to emphasize the profound contradiction that such a logistical choice represents. The spectacularization of rape is just one of the ways in which patriarchy appropriates the creativity of female figures, reducing them to mere appendages of male figures. Think of Joy Omoragbon, killed by her husband on March 28. Yet another feminicide. Yet another woman who, like Artemisia, is recognized only as a victim. We can no longer accept silence, normalization, and spectacle around our pain and we will use nonviolent civil disobedience to fight them. We call for liberation income as the first help from institutions to free us from violence.” After the activists protested, police and carabinieri intervened, after which the exhibition was closed to the public for about three hours for the necessary surveys to determine the extent of any damage. However, from initial findings it appears that the works were not affected.

Protest

“I can only condemn the act that these young people have committed,” said the president of Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura, Beppe Costa. “Of course, I am not against the expression of one’s own opinions, but I think it should be done taking into account the freedom of others as well. And today there were a lot of visitors who were denied the right to see the exhibition. I would like to thank the Police and Carabinieri for their intervention and for the promptness of the surveys conducted. And I also thank the staff of the Doge’s Palace and the Arthemisia company who made it possible to reopen the exhibition as early as the afternoon.”

Condemnation also from the president of the Region of Liguria, Giovanni Toti: “Solidarity with Palazzo Ducale, where this morning the activists of the movement whose name is a whole program, ’Let’s burn everything’ covered with black sheets some works inside the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition and daubed floors and walls. A way of expressing dissent that we strongly condemn because art should never be censored, even if an exhibition is not liked. It is not with violent and uncivilized gestures that we fight violence and incivility. And it also applies to gender-based violence. Indeed, perhaps particularly for gender-based violence. A work and the place that houses it are not a shooting gallery but represent the work, sacrifices and commitment of so many people.” For the action, two men and a woman between the ages of 25 and 30, residents of Lombardy, were reported by Digos for defilement and reached by a travel warrant from Genoa ordered by the questora of the Ligurian capital Silvia Burdese.

Protest at Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition: paint on the ground and blacked-out paintings

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