“When Mario proposed, for the third edition of ‘Arte all’Arte,’ to install works by Ilya Kabakov, I must admit I was a bit surprised. I knew Kabakov only as one of the most prominent artists of our time, but my knowledge didn’t go much beyond a few photos of some of his works. I couldn’t see the connection—at least not with Colle di Val d’Elsa. Then the trio—Mario, Lorenzo, and Maurizio—presented the project to me: the idea of connecting different historical periods through three key reference points—classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the contemporary era. The first is represented by a yellow marble column from the Montagnola Senese, topped with an open book whose text refers to the cult of ruins. The second, visible through a telescope installed in the evocative setting of Via delle Romite, depicts a lit window with two human figures and two angels. The third, a metaphor for the tragicomic events of the present, is a plexiglass panel upon which a swarm of flies forms the phrase: ‘we are free.’ Thus, the skillful placement of these works throughout the historic center of Colle shows how successive layers of modernity can be represented in art through pure and simple mental creation. Art that reveals the artist and his extraordinary humanity—a humanity as transparent as the crystal of my homeland.
”
— Marco Spinelli, Mayor of Colle di Val d’Elsa, excerpt from the catalogue Arte All’Arte III, 1998