The Collezione Ettore Molinario has unveiled its 47th dialogue, presenting a fascinating exploration that connects a masterpiece of 13th-century Arab-Norman art with one of contemporary artist Kiki Smith's most iconic works. This artistic conversation unfolds like a game of boxes within boxes, revealing unexpected connections between historical treasures from Palermo and modern art from New York.
The dialogue explores themes of mystery, power, and the human relationship with the unknown. According to collector Ettore Molinario, our fascination with mystery begins early in life through simple experiences like receiving wrapped gifts. "A box, deceitfully called a gift, wrapped in that innocence and lightness to which unaware adults expose the eyes of their heirs: this is where the obsession begins to take root, in both mind and body," Molinario explains. He emphasizes that every sealed container challenges our senses while inviting contemplation, teaching us that secrets are revealed gradually through patience and restraint.
The connection between these two artworks took nearly thirty years to materialize for Molinario. The breakthrough came just months ago during a visit to the Treasury of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, where an extraordinary collection of ivory boxes from 13th-century Arab-Norman art is housed. These historical treasures, once possibly containing royal jewels, were photographed by Florentine photographer Giacomo Brogi toward the end of the 19th century as sophisticated souvenirs of the Grand Tour era.
The ivory boxes reveal deeper symbolic meaning beyond their apparent composure. Molinario describes how "those pointed studs, like sharp claws clutching the box's corners as if it were flesh, that iron lock – simple and brutal – and the ivory that recalls the whiteness of skin" suggest these containers represent places of hidden power. He draws parallels between these boxes and the human skull, describing both as "inviolable chests" that protect our most precious secrets, urges, and memories.
This comparison leads naturally to Kiki Smith's artistic domain, which centers on the human body and its vulnerabilities. No other artist working in New York during the AIDS epidemic celebrated human fragility with such depth and sensitivity. Smith's work explores the body's dual nature – its structural strength through bones that support and give form, combined with its fluid aspects including the biological processes that sustain, heal, or harm us.
The specific Smith work featured in this dialogue, "Upside Down Body with Beads," presents a faceless cranial form that mirrors the mysterious caskets once guarded by Norman royalty. These rulers included Roger I, Emperor Frederick II, and Queen Maria of Sicily, the last descendant of the Norman dynasty. Both the historical boxes and Smith's contemporary sculpture celebrate similar themes about the limits of human knowledge and control.
Molinario views both artworks as gifts that challenge viewers to accept uncertainty. "Someone offering you the certainty that not everything can be known or controlled – every event, every desire. Someone inviting you to respect the indecipherable, the uncontrollable, the formless, even within yourself," he reflects. This perspective transforms both the medieval treasures and Smith's modern sculpture into invitations for deeper self-reflection.
The dialogue ultimately presents these works as royal and artistic gifts that guide viewers toward greater awareness and maturity. By juxtaposing objects separated by centuries and continents, the Collezione Ettore Molinario demonstrates how art transcends time and geography to address universal human experiences of mystery, vulnerability, and the search for meaning.
