I’ve recently spotted a news on a Facebook group of art lovers, that you can read here, about a vandalic act against the Neoclassical building, dating 1793, of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bologna, made by a group of anarchists. Most of the comments to the post were of sincere indignation, some others argued the veracity of the news. What seemed to be generally agreed is that the monument, the statues, were definitely ruined and required restoration, which means a considerable expense of taxpayers’ money. But… is that really true?
This news brought to my mind the question about art and its definition, or to say, what we can call art and what’s the factor that makes something be art. In my mind – but also according to a number of philosophers, art is everything that transmits an emotion.
So, given this definition for true, if indignation is an emotion, and art is everything that transmits emotion, therefore a statue that somehow makes people indignated is definitely art.
How many works of art around the world may express so well the soul of three different epoques – the glorious past of Ancient Greece, the love for perfection of the neoclassical age, and the contradictions and the sense pf insecurity of the years we are living? I think very few.
After all, the graffiti do not prevent to enjoy the original beautiness of the monument, being still observeable: it would be different, for example, if the statues were mutilated or some parts of the building were destroyed.
In this specific case, instead, the monument is still admirable in its whole and the graffiti add another chapter to the story it aims to tell us: the sense of loss of a youth who has no definite values to believe in, no enemy to fight against but still a lot of repressed rage and anger against the so-called ‘enstablishment’.
That also compensates, as someone ironically commented on that Facebook post, the sometimes discussed coldness of Neoclassical art.
For these reasons, if I were the University dean, I wouldn’t even think to restore the damage, and leave the graffiti just where they are. They didn’t ruin the monument, they actually enriched it. Unconsciously.
Pastaepomodoro 