(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 9 - Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi on
Monday hailed an unauthorised artwork representing a vagina
which a Milanese artist and activist showed for about an hour
next to an installation by artist Gaetano Pesce which has
stirred mirth for its unintentional phallic appearance.
"I believe that art, especially contemporary art - but not only
if we also think of classical art, when it was contemporary in
its eras - has always been conflict, provocation, debate. So I
see the initiative in a positive way", said Manfredi, commenting
on the vagina by Cristina Donati Meyer, whose installation was
not authorized, and which was then removed with the intervention
of the Police.
"The fact that this artist - commented Manfredi - left Milan to
come and make this provocation in Naples, means that Naples has
returned to the center of the debate of artists in the country".
Pesce's inadvertently 'phallic' installation has boosted tourism
to the southern Italian port city. (ANSA).