Niclas Castello's Golden Cube Descends into Dante's Inferno at Venice Biennale

At the 61st Venice Biennale, artist Niclas Castello presents 'La diabolica commedia: Prelude' at FàBRICA33, a project that maps contemporary figures and events onto Dante's Divine Comedy. The exhibition features over 220 oil pastel drawings, including one depicting his iconic golden cube—a 186-kilogram, 24-carat gold sculpture previously shown in Central Park in 2022 and at Ca' di Dio during the 59th Biennale—now placed in Hell. The project, developed since 2022, extends Dante's journey across seven centuries to 2026, forming the basis for a planned 900-square-meter labyrinth of 298 paintings in 149 Plexiglas cases. The current installation shows the work in provisional form, with drawings mounted on wheeled plywood structures, revealing the process of judgment. Castello uses generative AI to develop scenarios but found ChatGPT conflated Dante's cantos, so he spent months correcting outputs. The exhibition highlights a visual culture bias towards depicting transgression over virtue, with Hell densely populated and Paradise notably sparse. The golden cube's placement in Hell serves as both self-critique and branding, as the artist subjects his own emblem to the same moral judgment he applies to the world. The work is on view at FàBRICA33 in Venice during the 61st Biennale.