ANSA) - NEW YORK, APRIL 15 - With a very special Lady Liberty overlooking the port of New York in dialogue with the Statue of Liberty, Paola Pivi is back on the High Line.
"You know who I am" is a bronze replica of the original by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi with the face covered by a stylized mask that evokes the emoji of a child's face: the son Norbu that the artist and her husband adopted at five years between many vicissitudes in a community of Tibetan exiles in India.
"The 'lazy' interpretation of the work is that it is an 'object trouvé' in the manner of the Dadaists, as when Marcel Duchamp found a urinal and signed it transformed it into a work of art", wrote the "New York Times" recalling the passion for the Dada movement of
Italian artist who has lived in Anchorage in Alaska for years.
For Cecilia Alemani, director and curator of the High Line's artistic program, as well as of the new Venice Biennale, "immigration is a theme that touches many lives: 'You know who I am" addresses it in an accessible and even playful inviting to think of individuals whose collective experiences of challenges and hopes make up the reality of immigration to America. "Pivi herself explains that the Statue of Liberty" represents the relationship between people and the state of freedom they obtain - or they don't get - from society ", while the reply on the High Line" talks about the identity of a person, in this case Norbu, and his relationship with society ".
immigration is a theme that touches many lives: 'You know who I am "addresses it in an accessible and even playful way, inviting to think of individuals whose collective experiences of challenges and hopes make up the reality of immigration in America".
Pivi herself explains that the Statue of Liberty "represents the relationship between people and the state of freedom they get - or don't get - from society", while the reply on the High Line "speaks of a person's identity, in this Norbu case, and its relationship with society ".
immigration is a theme that touches many lives: 'You know who I am "addresses it in an accessible and even playful way, inviting to think of individuals whose collective experiences of challenges and hopes make up the reality of immigration in America".
Pivi herself explains that the Statue of Liberty "represents the relationship between people and the state of freedom they get - or don't get - from society", while the reply on the High Line "speaks of a person's identity, in this Norbu case, and its relationship with society ".
It was the child who "chose" the parents in 2012 in the Children's Village of Dharamshala, the headquarters of a large community of exiles from Tibet, but the battle to finalize the adoption lasted four years after which Pivi and her husband succeeded. to bring the little stateless person to the USA thanks to a legal process concluded with the granting of an American passport.
For the Italian artist, the installation on the High Line is not the first along the former railway after the two zebras in a snowy landscape that appeared in 2012 on the advertising billboard that runs alongside the park.
"You know who I am" is just a piece of the American journey of the artist who on April 22 will bring his anthropomorphic polar bears covered with technicolor feathers to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
After Norbu, who was fascinated by the Statue of Liberty during the long adoption process, five other people and as many stories will give the face of the Lady Liberty of the High Line every two months: each an example of the "biography of freedom".
For example there will be Marco,
a Bronx restaurateur who arrived in the US undocumented as a child who recently obtained asylum thanks to the "Dreamers" law.
Some stories will have a happy ending and others will not, because - explains Pivi - "freedom is controlled by others".
(HANDLE).
