Sergio Risaliti on Rebecca Moccia: Courage as a Generational Manifesto

Sergio Risaliti, artistic director of Museo Novecento in Florence, profiles young Italian artist Rebecca Moccia, comparing her to David against Goliath due to her youth and gender. He first encountered her work three years ago at a fair at the Galleria Mazzoleni stand in Turin, where a small photo of her piece 'Coraggio' (Courage) was displayed alongside works by Savinio, de Chirico, Burri, and Fontana. The photo shows the word 'Coraggio' painted in white enamel on the dark roof of an industrial building in a peripheral square in Milan, executed on a rainy day so that the letters smudged. Risaliti interprets the work as a generational manifesto calling for courage, resistance, and a feminine revolution. Moccia herself described it as an exhortation to reflect on courage, resistance, beauty, and art, with the vulnerability revealed by the rain. Risaliti links her to the Italian humanist tradition from Giotto to Kounellis, and to artists like Boetti, Paolini, and Fabro. He notes that Moccia works across painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, and web, and that her piece has taken on universal significance in the current global crisis.