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Serial Spanish nudist strips off in front of Michelangelo’s David

Italy’s most artistic streaker is back.

Published: 24 October 2017 11:21 CEST

Serial Spanish nudist strips off in front of Michelangelo's David

Michelangelo's David is possibly the world's most famous male nude. Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP

Three years after he stripped off in front of Botticelli’s Venus and six months since he frolicked in the Trevi Fountain in Rome, a Spanish man once again surprised art lovers by posing nude in front of another Italian masterpiece: Michelangelo’s David.

The Spaniard, a “performer” named Adrián Pino Olivera, removed his clothes last Sunday and stood naked next to the monumental sculpture, which takes pride of place in Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia.

He shouted “incomprehensible phrases” while a companion filmed him, Il Messaggero reported.

Security guards rushed to cover him and eventually escorted him out of the museum, which attracts thousands of visitors each day.

Police were asked to charge the exhibitionist with obscenity, given that his performance took place in a public place frequented by minors, but it’s not clear if any investigation is underway.

The museum’s director, Cecilie Hollberg, called the incident “sad and ridiculous”.

Olivera, however, calls it art.

His public nudity is part of “Project V”, his attempt to “transmit and claim the divine power of the Feminine in the face of the decline of the contemporary male world”, according to his website.

Each performance incorporates some sort of V sign for Venus, the Roman goddess of love.

Since his 2014 debut in front of Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Olivera has appeared nude in front of iconic artworks across Europe, including the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre in Paris, John Everett Millais’s Ophelia at London’s Tate Britain and The Nude Maja by Francisco Goya at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

READ MORE: Spaniard strips in front of Botticelli masterpiece

On April 22nd, he skinny-dipped in the Trevi Fountain in Rome while bemused tourists snapped photos.

We don’t know where he’ll strike next, but we do have a clue as to when: Olivera says he always chooses the 22nd day of the month for a performance, since V is the 22nd letter of the Roman alphabet.

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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