I came up with the idea of because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi.
- Gianni Motti
It would seem a perfect way for an artist to make a political statement, using the body fat of a despised politician to mold a bar of soap. Once you get past the obvious and numerous medical ethics questions, this might even seem rather humorous. That is, if you can get over the ewww! factor.
Of course, art is a highly subjective thing, and where one person sees a brilliant artistic and political statement, another will see a bar of soap and questionable medical ethics. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may or may not be evil incarnate, but I’m one of those folks more concerned with the questionable medical ethics. Patients, even when public figures, should not have to wonder if various discarded bodily fluids or components might end up being used for nefarious purposes. Yuck….
Switzerland-based artist Gianni Motti claims to have bought the fat from a clinic where the leader had a liposuction operation performed.
He moulded it into a bar of soap which he named Mani Pulite (Clean Hands).
The work was put on display at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and was sold to a private Swiss collector.
Motti gave it the title Clean Hands as a reference to an anti-corruption campaign of the 1990s. It reflects the artist’s view of the current government.
If Motti can do this with a politician’s body fat, I shudder to think what he might do with a urine sample….
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