At the Mambo in Bologna the review was inaugurated “Easy irony. Irony in Italian art between the 20th and twentieth centuries“. Among the works on display, an installation in particular has aroused a wave of controversy: a stuffed cat positioned on a photocopier, with the possibility for visitors to operate the machine and reproduce the image. Next to it, there are also several embalmed doves, presented as decorative elements.
For Lav, this is not art but a “horrible show“spectacularization of death” And “trivialization of suffering“. According to President Gianluca Felicetti, transforming the body of a sentient being into a” conceptual object “cannot be defined, but only lack of respect.
The request for removal to the Mayor
Cats are life companions and not entertainment materials. For this reason, the association asked the mayor Matteo Lepore to intervene, ordering the removal of all animals embalmed by the exhibition. In fact, no provocation can justify the use of corpses as artistic decorations.
The invitation to the boycott
To this is added an invitation to citizens, associations and lovers of life in all its form: boycott the exhibition and write to the Mambo Museum to ask for the immediate elimination of the offending installations. For the association, art can be provocative and disturbing, but cannot transform death into entertainment, nor reduce animals to simple scenic objects.
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Art? No, a macabre show
The debate does not only concern the single installation, but the very idea of what can be called contemporary art. Is it really enough shocking and provoking to legitimize a work? Or are there ethical limits that should never be exceeded?
Mambo’s exposure is decidedly further pushes, reducing animal life to simple material to exhibit. A choice that rather than stimulating a reflection appears as a gesture without sensitivity and real artistic value. If this is the future of art, it is to be wondered if we are not bartering creativity with the pure desire to scandalize.
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