Mediterranean Masterpiece

site-specific installation, Italian Institute of Culture, Stockholm 2012

Mediterranean Masterpiece is a site-specific project for the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm. This building is one of the most significant projects realized by Giò Ponti during Sixties. The installation consists of two hundred bags full of garbage lo- cated inside the Institute’s exhibition room. On the surface of the bags there are two different printed textures, that take up geometric patterns designed by Ponti for majolicas decoration used in some buildings located in South of Italy, projected by the architect himself.

The starting point of the work is the Italian cultural stereotype of the “façade”, the desire to make “bella figura”. The contrast between the elegant shape of the bags – in harmony with the surrounding architectural context – and their use destination becomes allusive of the current Italian cultural management, considered a good of secondary importance, a waste material, economically unproductive but at the same time exploited for merely political purposes, when required.

By sheer chance the piles of garbage are hosted in the exhibition room, as well as the waste, that it’s been collected by the emplo- yees of the Institute over the previous months.