On a sunday mass in St Peters Cathedral, Rome, 1972, a 33-year old Hungarian Geologist battered with a hammer Michelangelo's marble sculpture of the Virgin holding her dead son in her lap, the Pietà. It is reported that he, during the attack, both did see himself as Christ and Michelangelo, ready to attack the Virgin’s image – with the logical reasoning that as being eternal, he could have no mother.
A mountain appears when two tectonic plates collide and push the shriveling ground upwards. We use this mountain, for building, maintaining and striving for higher levels of culture. Conquering mountains means conquering nature (achieving culture). Monuments, buildings, houses and graveyards – stone is a large part of our cultural foundation – of what is made to last. We generate through these stones – our History is made of stones.
The marble that the Pietà is made from is created when limestone made from sediment layers of shells, sand and mud are pressed together under great pressure within the rising mountain. Marble – A surface whose richness depends on our ability to believe in it, its skin texture and veins, of our will to go deep into it – to fall into this surface.
We quarry this marble high up in the mountains, from the inner core of the stones. The marble makes possible a physical shift in positions, from formless (mud) to form (sculpture), and therefore becoming a material resource.
The 3D model of the sculpture known as Pietà by Michelangelo is possible to move around – to give you a sense of space. It is as if in a certain non-space, floating erroneously – searching for its real life mirrored self, its twin. It is a virtual simulacrum, without tactile possibilities. Without traces of time – then also without a future.
To be alive is to be able to regenerate – to heal.
A statue never heals itself without the human hand – it needs the caress of a careful preparation, sanding, carving, and mounting of piece by piece of shattered marble – with its marble veins carefully glued together. The traces of scars eliminated by the light that elevates it, not able to whither with the elements. Cast out from the realm of time.