So I thought, Why not erect the Hollywood sign here, on a Sicilian refuse dump, bringing hope and fantasy to a part of the world that is desperately in need of both? I decided that my Biennale work would be a one-to-one scale model of that famous brand name, relocated to Palermo. It was a lunatic undertaking, but I figured that if I could make people forget about violence for a little while just by transposing a symbol from one place to another, the experiment would be worthwhile. When I first saw that H go up against the sky, for a moment even I was confused about what world I was in: Had I imported a bit of L.A. to Sicily—or beamed the whole city of Palermo over to California?
Adapted from Maurizio Cattelan, Autobiografia Non Autorizzata, by Francesco Bonami, published in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori Editori, copyright 2011.
