More than eighty works of art confiscated from the mafia are on display at the Palazzo Reale in Milan until January 26. Acquired to launder money from criminal activities, these paintings created by Salvador Dali or Giorgio De Chirico are now made available to the public.
Recycling money by buying big names in modern and contemporary art is what some mafia or criminal groups do in Italy. In Milan, a free exhibition entitled “SalvArti, from confiscations to public collections” allows you to admire works seized by the courts.
Some treasures from art history
Thus of this small lithograph in Indian ink by the surrealist Salvador Dali entitled “Romeo and Juliet” which hung on the wall of the kitchen of the “king of poker”, a mafioso of the ‘Ndrangheta convicted for extortion, or of this incredible oil on canvas by the Italian master de Chirico, “Piazza d’Italia”, hanging in the hallway.
Among the hundreds of paintings seized in Calabria from the apartment of the “king of poker”, we find those of other big names in the history of art including Lucio Fontana and his cut-out canvases or Antonio Ligabue and his animals .
All the paintings in the exhibition have a story. It was in 2016 that the Italian carabinieri got their hands on this artistic treasure purchased to launder the dirty money of organized crime. “To transport large loads of drugs, you need entire trucks, while to transport paintings which are sometimes worth 30, 40 or 50,000 euros each, all you need is a small box,” explains in the 7:30 p.m. January 14 Colonel Paolo Befera, responsible for operations within the Heritage Carabinieri.
Three million works seized in fifty years
In fifty years, these specialized investigators have recovered three million works of art. If archeology forms the lion’s share, contemporary art is not left out. “If we succeed in demonstrating that these works are the fruit of money laundering and criminal reinvestment, then we can place them in sequestration. And when we return them to where they were found, it is as if we were putting them back into custody. places a piece of history”, further indicates Colonel Paolo Befera.
-In Milan, the public can therefore admire these works which decorated the walls of the mafiosi’s houses. Original pieces by Andy Warhol, Christo, Arman and even Keith Haring seized in 2013 by the Rome court from an international money laundering network complete the exhibition. All now symbolize resistance to crime.
TV subject: Valérie Dupont
Adaptation web: olhor
“SalvArti, from confiscations to public collections”, Palazzo Reale, Milan (IT), until January 26, 2025; then at the Palace of Culture, Reggio Calabria, from February 8 to April 27, 2025.
