As much as I liked my night visit to the medieval hilltop town of San Gimignano, there was another reason why braving the daytime hordes turned out to be worth it.
And it has to do with rust-covered naked dudes waiting just around the corner to surprise you.
If there’s anything that could make me glad to be surrounded by a busload of tourists, it was the sight of a naked man slathered in red in the shadows of a deserted medieval town. Believe me, it was far more reassuring in the daylight than it was at midnight!
These rusty naked men are part of an exhibit called Vessel by sculptor Antony Gormley. Beginning with 39 interconnected box structures in the Galleria Continua, the exhibit spills out into the streets of San Gimignano with six identical figures by Gormley—all of which are casts of his own naked body. Iiiiinteresting.
I saw only two of the six figures placed around the town, although I didn’t see the sculpture that was atop one of San Gimignano’s famous 13th century skyscrapers. A similar shock factor was involved in Gormley’s first exhibit of public art in New York, called Event Horizon. He perched 31 figures on rooftops and on the edges of buildings in Manhattan, freaking out passersby who thought they were seeing suicides in the making!
As public art goes, I would put these into the categories of striking, eerie and haunting. What would freak you out more: seeing a potential jumper on your way to work, or seeing a naked man covered in red in an empty street at midnight?
