Mauro Bergonzoli - Göttinnen

his grandson would kill him. In order to keep his daughter
from meeting men, Akrisios locked her into a bronze
room. This however did not prevent Zeus to lie with her
in form of gold rain. Again Mauro Bergonzoli presents
a version to the beholder, in which all interference has
been eliminated: naked Danae lies in undefined darkness;
only the flowing hair serves as her bed. The occurrence
is neither classifiable in its location, nor in its time. It
could be happening today or have occurred centuries
ago. The event is therefore transcends time and raises
the claim to perennial significance. What solely counts is
neither the place nor the time of the events, but only the
moment itself, that moment, when the gold showers on
Danae’s body. Once again Bergonzoli shows his actress
autonomous; nothing keeps her from escaping the golden
rain, no walls, no barriers, no other person: She is vessel
for a happening, which she wants to experience.
While in the interpretations of Leda and Danae the
man is only depicted indirectly, in the works CHINA IN
LOVE, FIRST DANCE as well as ADAM AND EVE he emerges
in all his manhood. Both China in Love and First Dance
symbolize the artist’s very own vision of bliss: The vision
of two individuals melting into one embrace, the most
impermeable of all, which is hardly separable, and makes
the two into one whole, physically and spiritually. The
kiss, expected by both, fills the air and promises to make
this vision come true, in accordance with Ovid from the
Ars amatoria: “ If someone takes kisses but does not take
the rest, that man deserves to lose even what he has
gained.”
This “rest” is also implied in Bergonzoli’s interpretation
of ADAM AND EVE, which fundamentally breaks with the
traditional Christian iconography: The forbidden fruit from
the tree of knowledge has already been picked, but it is
not shame of the realization of their nudity which can
be read in the gestures of the human couple, but on the
contrary unhesitant marvel. Adam is the one, holding the
apple: He kneels down before Eve, to hand her the fruit,
clearly he is the driving motor behind this lapse of sin:
Not only does the tree carrying all fruits spring up directly
behind him, while Eve is framed by the feathers of the
peacock strutting behind her, also Adam has by now slain
the snake and wears it as the wristband of a monstrous
men’s watch noticeably on the very hand that passes Eve
the apple. Hence Eve is not in Bergonzoli’s eyes the one
who will be made responsible for the consequences of
the fruit indulgence; it is Adam, who seems to trust in the
fact that the Unicorn arriving behind him will catapult the
connotation of the apple back to the realm from which it
originated, the realm of myth. In consequence the apple
fixated by both is no longer a fatal symbol for sin, but has
become the symbol of promise.
Especially in the reduction of black and white
Bergonzoli succeeds in shifting the observer’s focus on
the message, without having to additionally convey them
in color. The artist also presents JAPAN and FOUNTAIN
OF YOUTH with hardly any color, merely the red of the
Japanese protagonist’s parasol, which corresponds with
her lipstick and sets individual accents. In the Fountain of
Youth on the other hand there is no need for red: even
without color the six actresses embody that which they
are: Perfect images of eternally young ideality. Although
the hair towers awaken associations to rococo hairstyles,
the Ladies seem to be contemporary, as well as timeless
in their desire to find inside the fountain of youth what
they are searching for. As early as the late Middle Ages the
legend of the fountain of youth had been written about in
literature. Hans Rosenplüt and Hans Sachs had composed
poetry about the theme and Rabelais reported how in the
“Realm of quintessence” old hags were melted down and
recast, to become young again. “ Asked if old men could
also be melted, he replied: No. They rejuvenate when
they spend time with young women.”