Mamma Mia! Wang Du, 2003

"It is a project about ‘life being consumed’.

Tourism is now a constantly growing phenomenon, despite the fact that the fate of the world seems increasingly precarious due to wars, diseases, natural disasters, and more. The types and itineraries of travel are becoming more diverse and innovative: practically everything can be found, ranging from natural to artificial landscapes, from historical or folkloric destinations to exotic ones. Even the emerging urban context of modern cities has become a tourist destination. This phenomenon has been driven by the power of mass communication, digitalization, and commercialization, and has already turned into a trend: that of "life being consumed." One need only look at the massive production of all kinds of travel guides with eye-catching covers, multimedia travel brochures born of substantial investments, as well as simple promotional leaflets. These are distributed to curious and enthusiastic crowds in places like airline fast food restaurants, which mix nature, history, and culture. Centuries of historical transformations and cultural differences among peoples are condensed into various tourist routes. Everyone can choose one according to their preferences. Thus, one can relive in a week the marvelous experience of Marco Polo’s long journey, or the adventurous discovery of the new American continent by Columbus. If the many varieties of vitamin supplements and exercise equipment are the biological choice of human beings for nourishment and good health, then tourism represents a more synthetic way to satisfy curiosity, the desire for emotion, the thirst for intense experiences, and the need to kill time. The trend toward a "life being consumed" sums up the belief that in contemporary society, everything can be consumed once and for all. If nature, history, culture, and reality have become travel souvenirs, then our body and mind have also been definitively consumed. What is the possible alternative to all this? *Mamma Mia!* was conceived based on the above considerations. The intention is to construct an artificial tourist site. Its original form is that of an abandoned vaporizer. However, once placed within the context of vacationing, it will become a surprising and incredible relic. It will be priceless, as a keepsake worn down by time—a remnant of a bygone era.
"

— Wang Du “Arte all’Arte VIII”, 2003

On the occasion of the VIII edition of Arte all’Arte, curators Elio Grazioli and Hou Hanru invited Wang Du, an artist of Chinese origin but Parisian by adoption, to create the work Mamma Mia! in San Gimignano.

"Wang Du, an artist of Chinese origin but Parisian by adoption, has been recognized as the master of image manipulation related to mass media. He is considered an iconoclastic hero in his reclaiming and destruction of the spectacular images of our contemporary society, which is founded on the logic of creation, consumption, and manipulation of both textual and visual information. In his spectacular sculptures and installations, Wang Du transforms some of the most extraordinary moments—broadcast by the hegemonic system of mass media—into ironic and absurd forms. Looking at his exceptional artworks, what one truly experiences is the final disillusionment with the fictitious myth of contemporary society, sustained by the machine that drives global capitalism. Tourism is undoubtedly the most important activity in the region where Arte all’Arte takes place. It also represents the underlying foundation of contemporary society in these areas and dominates much of the economic, cultural, and political activity that occurs here.

Wang Du, rather than commenting on the apparent phenomenon of touristic triumph, is particularly interested in exploring the inner and essential nature of tourism itself. The obsessive fascination with the myth of the image leads him to question the surprising nature of the urban landscape of San Gimignano. But the artist prefers to play with the fictitious quality of the place instead of dealing with its ‘real history’: somewhere in the city, against the spectacular image of San Gimignano with its towers, he discreetly digs into the ground and reveals a large object that seemingly belongs to a distant past. Its unusual appearance reminds us of some flying object from outer space and, at the same time, it also resembles an oversized version of household goods sold in supermarkets… Obviously, Wang Du is crafting a new attraction for this famous tourist destination—one that turns out to be the most suspicious, much like the kind of tourism he proposes. It is simply a parody of contemporary tourism and of economic and social life, portraying San Gimignano as a “city of tourist clichés.”

“Arte all’Arte VIII”, 2003

Credits

Wang Du
Mamma Mia!, 2003
Parco della Rocca, San Gimignano
Project for Arte all’Arte 2003
Photo Ela Bialkowska, view of the installation

Art Exhibitions

Talks