Milan’s Palazzo Reale has managed to claw back from the hands of organised crime this extraordinary set of masterpieces: The exhibition, named “Save Arts: From Confiscations to Public Collections,” features 80 confiscated works including some by artists like Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí and Robert Rauschenberg, and Christo.
Running until January before moving to Reggio Calabria, the show focuses on one of the more esoteric aspects of mafia activities- the trade-in masterpieces as currency in drug and arms trafficking. It includes a framed Dali lithograph called Romeo & Juliet and Warhol from his Summer Arts in the Parks series to works spanning from the 1930s through early 2000.
In 2016, Italian authorities found two stolen Vincent van Gogh paintings in one of the worlds most high-profile cases of mafia art theft. The paintings, taken from an Amsterdam museum in 2002, were hidden on a property near Naples owned by Pietro Raffaele Imperiale. Worth some $ 55 million and considered to be examples of how in the underworld they borrow art for economic gain.
Italian investigator Maria Rosaria Lagana underscored the importance of recovering and adjusting the stolen works for a new use. “These items, which were originally thought to be lost forever in the underworld of organized crime, have been returned back to their community and represent a defiance against crime,” she said. This is a rebirth of amazing work, it is like taking treasures that are buried deep under and putting them up for all to see.
It features an array of evidence, including powerful digital and print media supplied by police operations. Twenty of the paintings on display were stolen from a boss of the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia group and others had been seized as part of an international money laundering ring that was busted in 2013.
The traveling exhibition, after its debut last month in Rome and current run in Milan, will move to Reggio Calabria, a stronghold of the ‘Ndrangheta, before ending in April. The return of the artworks will be done in favour of Italian state museums, where they will be better preserved and open to public viewing.
More than a simple restoration of pilfered cultural heritage, this arrests helps remind the world that art is the make-up to organized crime.
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