Sergio Risaliti on the Black David: Symbolism, Controversy, and a Manifesto Against Horror

Sergio Risaliti, artistic director of the Settimana Michelangiolesca, discusses the Black David (Noi) installed in Piazza della Repubblica, Florence, during the 2016 festival. The work, a collaboration with artist Massimo Barzagli, consists of a five-meter black-painted marble statue of David lying horizontally, covered by Barzagli's painted tarp Save Our Flowers (from the Collezione del Museo Pecci). Risaliti explains the piece as an iconoclastic response to racial violence, migrant deaths, and the July 14 Nice truck attack. He criticizes art historian Tomaso Montanari for conservative polemics and distances the project from Ai Weiwei's refugee boat installation at Palazzo Strozzi, emphasizing that Noi was a non-commercial, ephemeral intervention. The statue was produced with Studi d'Arte Cave Michelangelo and technical direction by Luciano Massari, organized by Mus.e. Risaliti frames the work as a critique of idolatry, violence, and ideological rhetoric, drawing parallels to the destruction of the Vendôme Column and Michelangelo's own erasure of Goliath's head.