“It’s not just a sculpture or an installation – the artist, 42-year-old Francesco Cavaliere from Piombino (Livorno) explained to the newspaper – but a real musical instrument
A scene from the film Mr Bean, The Last Catastrophe
Sometimes reality trumps fantasy. During the finissage of the exhibition “Wunderkind‘ to the sea, the Art Museum of Ravenna, a spectator hit one of the main works – “Xilena”, it is a composition of blown glass trumpets – with his backpack and smashed it. A bit like Mr. Bean’s Final Disaster when Bean approaches The Mother and accidentally ruins it for good by tearing a hole in the middle of the frame.
A similar thing happened last Sunday in front of several witnesses. The viewer – as the Corriere di Romagna reports – with the ear yes would be too close to any of the horns to pick up the sound emanating from the installation: but in the end, turning abruptly to leave, he would have hit the frangible element and caused a domino effect on the other trumpets. Xilema, founded in 2012, took over various forms over time and only in the summer of 2022 this one had arrived: three glass trumpets supported on stands and equipped with an audio amplification system.
“It’s not just a sculpture or an installation – explained the artist, 42-year-old Francesco Cavaliere from Piombino (Livorno) to the newspaper – but from a real musical instrument that I brought to various concerts and sound performances, such as the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. Xilema is special to me, I care deeply about it and what happened has caused me immense anger. But when we are confronted with such fragile works, certain things can happen.”