Man Arrested in Connection to Suspected Arson Attack on Michelangelo Pistoletto Sculpture

A man has been arrested in connection with the suspected arson attack on an installation by renowned Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto in Naples. 

The large-scale artwork, titled Venus in Rags and depicting the Roman goddess picking through a pile of colorful clothes, was destroyed on Wednesday only two weeks after it was installed outside Naples City Hall. In video posted to social media, the blaze quickly consumed the sculpture, leaving only its metal skeleton. Several versions of Venus in Rags have been erected in public spaces worldwide since its initial creation in 1967.

Italian press reports that a 32-year-old homeless man was arrested after authorities reviewed video footage.

The 90-year-old Pistoletto is one of best known figures of Italian Arte Povera movement—meaning “poor art”—which sought to create a new sculptural language from everyday and ephemeral materials. Pistoletto participated in Documenta in Kassel several times and was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2003 Venice Biennale.

He lamented the destruction of the sculpture in an interview with the the Corriere della Sera daily newspaper, and guessed at the motivation for the suspected arson.

“It is a work that calls for regeneration, on the necessity to find a balance and harmony between two minds that are represented on the one hand by beauty, and on the other by consummate consumerism, a disaster,’’ he said. “The world is going up in flames anyway. The same spirits that are waging war are the ones that set the Venus on fire.“