La Guerra di Piero
2018
White corner, prickly and dry shrub, pot, herbarium sheet with inscription clipping taken from the Divine Comedy, puddle / protective band of Blood.
Text by Gaia Fattorini
Exhibition: Vale Palmi - Contra Me Giusto
Labs Gallery Bologna
2 February to 23 March 2019
Piero's War (...) refers to Pier delle Vigne, which Dante included in the XIII canto dell'inferno, in the circle of suicides. His body is transformed into a shrub that, if broken, bleeds and speaks. He is condemned to an eternal punishment every time someone tears off a piece, and yet, precisely because in life he has unjustly inflicted a punishment on himself that was not his fault, he has things to say and tell.
To listen to Pier delle Vigne, to read his words, you have to get close to the bush and to approach it you have to cross a pool of blood. Piero's verb is an emblematic accusation, which the human being has the moral duty to know.
But that lake of blood that in our iconic memory recalls the dead by outrage, is a border and a line of protection. It prevents us from getting closer, torturing us with a distance that creates fear and curiosity, resignation and guilt. Only those who have the courage to take a stand and decide to overcome the obstacle, remove the taboo, face the disturbing spectres of their own home and trample on blood, will be able to read what Piero has to tell us.
