Naples has a mermaid again: Lello Esposito’s ‘Partenope’ revealed

Partenope ancient symbol ofNapolia city that celebrated its birthday only two days ago2,500 yearscome back. And back inaluminumhalf bird and half sea creature, as he imagines itLello Espositothe artist who has already given his city the egg, the Pulcinella and the eyes of San Gennaro, works that guide the dreamlike universe of the Campania capital, always poised between the sacred and the profane.

The mermaid, conceived a year ago and developed in the stables of Palazzo Sansevero, the heart of magical Naples chosen by Esposito for his atelier, a destination for art lovers, was unveiled today and dedicated to the city’s birthday. With the sculptor, also the mayorGaetano Manfredi. The sculpture reinterprets the figure of Parthenope by fusing elements oftradition e della mythologywith signs ofrebirth and hopeand represents a profound homage toNaples rootscombining Esposito’s contemporary art with the millenary historical legacy that the mermaid embodies.

The archbishop’s message and the location at Monte Echia

In a message of best wishes to the city sent on the occasion of the unveiling ceremony, the archbishopMimmo Battagliaunderlines how Naples is a “loved and wounded, blessed and contradictory city”, but with “a thousand colors together to paint thehopeof a more supportive, more welcoming humanity”; a city “as old as the sea”, where “no one is truly a foreigner”, “a beautiful mermaid who will continue to swim among the challenges of this difficult and wonderful time”. The work, for Manfredi, represents “a contribution of extraordinary aesthetic and symbolic value, a tangible sign that will welcome anyone who visits Naples, immediately telling ourroots e la thousand-year historyof our city. We couldn’t imagine a better locationMount Echiafor this work. Installing Esposito’s siren there means bringing Naples back to its origins to give it the strength to look beyond, confirming this site as thebeating heartof a city that continues to enchant the world with its vitality and its eternal becoming”.

Identity and metamorphosis: the vision of Lello Esposito

“For about 50 years I have dedicated my work as an artist to my city – he explainsEspositosculptor and painter with 30 years of collective and personal exhibitions all over the world, which he dedicated to the archetypes ofNeapolitannessa very personal research work, also clearing them overseas – this mermaid reflects mineartistic project of identity and metamorphosis. There is an ancient identity, that ofParthenopelinked tofoundationof the settlement of the same name in the 8th century. BC His is a sailor cult, probably comes from the Greek island ofRodi. Those sailors who are the same ones who gave birth to the first settlement from which it would be bornNeapolisin 475 BC”. The femininity of Esposito’s Parthenope finds its model in the statues ofCompensation e del Parthenonbecause “I wanted to cross Greek art and move from archaic Greece to the aesthetics of classical Greece, of the 5th century BC, not by chance the century in which Neapolis was born – he adds – but the lower part of the mermaid’s body had to be that of agalloanother auspicious symbol that I have worked on for years and that I couldn’t help but choose for the occasion: asymbol of hoperebirth, awakening. After all, the archaic sirens of mythology were volatile. Those who had seduced Ulysses must have been more creatures of the sky than of the sea. The rooster, with its morning crowing, is reconnected with the sun and the cult of Helios was central precisely in that culture of ancient Rhodes from which, according to some historical reconstructions, the sailors who founded our city came. The monstrous legs of the Mermaid are a further symbolic game that combines the symbol of the rooster with that of the volcano: they are in fact aVesuvius overturned. Rooted in our volcanic earth, the legs of thischthonia mermaidthey bring the mind back to that incandescent matter which, condensing, constitutes the tufaceous foundations of our city”.