CARRARA – It happened again, they broke an arm of Anna G again, the work of designer design, the anthropomorphic corkscrew located in the central Piazza Alberica, in veined statuary marble, reproduction of the design by Alessandro Mendini for Alessi from 1994. A At this point some might speak of a social and cultural emergency.
To recap the damage suffered by the works of White Carrara 2024: on the night of the inauguration she, Anna G, immediately ended up in the crosshairs, with two arms broken by two different individuals in two separate episodes. But she didn’t end there. Then it was the turn of the Gomitolo marble and glass table by Paolo Ulian in Piazza Mazzini. A father places his daughter on it but the load is too heavy so the table shatters (not the glass that was placed on it, luckily for the little girl). A few hours earlier it had been the turn of Bambù, the creation by Gianni Giannarelli located in via Loris Giorgi: a piece of marble bamboo was unscrewed and ‘swiped’ from this work.
Now here we go again: after the administration and organization had hurried to ‘repair’ Anna G by putting back both her arms, someone breaks an arm at work again.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be counted among the damages, but the episode still deserves to be mentioned to have a clearer picture of the situation: the overnight intervention on the marble bookcase in front of the Academy where some skulls had been placed. In this case there was no damage to be repaired but it was certainly a protest gesture capable of arousing much controversy and also pushing the Jewish community and a councilor to file a complaint, interpreting the action as discriminatory towards the Jewish community and State of Israel, a Star of David is reproduced therein.
In short, a White Carrara as lively as this year had never been seen before, despite the indisputable artistic value of the works on display. It is thought-provoking that the historic center is home to the Academy of Fine Arts and that before this latest gesture, just a few hours before and a couple of hundred meters away in length of air, at Palazzo Cucchiari the preview for the press of one of the most beautiful and wonderful exhibitions of pictorial and sculptural art by Italian artists ever seen in the city was taking place. The last glimpse of Italian painting with an international scope: Boldini, De Nittis, Zandomeneghi, Fattori and many others become the creators of an amazement that inevitably arises and inevitably fills the heart of the spectator passing through his eyes. The Belle Epoque is the title of the exhibition. Probably another era.
