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L.O.V.E

Name: L.O.V.E
Address: Piazza degli Affari, Milano, Lombardia, IT

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Paolo Angelo

July 15, 2022

The name of the sculpture, presented to the city of Milan by the then mayor Letizia Moratti, stands for 'freedom, hate, revenge, eternity'. The first thing that leaps to the eye, inevitably, is the long middle finger stretching more than two metres. On closer inspection, however, the other fingers are not closed, but severed: a sign that the author's intention was probably to reproduce a middle finger, but sui generis. "Love', in fact, by Cattelan's own admission, represents a hand engaged in a fascist salute and eroded by time in all its limbs, except for the middle finger. It is no coincidence that the sculpture has been placed in front of the Stock Exchange, one of the best known examples - signed by Paolo Mezzanotte - of the architecture of the Ventennio Fascista in the city. The 'Cattelan finger', as originally planned, was to remain in Piazza degli Affari for only two weeks, but then - after a very long tug-of-war, with an accompanying social collection of signatures by the then councillor for culture Stefano Boeri - in 2012 the Pisapia administration decided to keep it in front of the Stock Exchange forever. Following protests from some of Milan's political and cultural representatives, offended by the work's significance, the critic Philippe Daverio had proposed that the work be transferred to Bologna, a "wittier" and "more suitable" city to welcome the Paduan artist's "ironic gesture".