It was an unusually cloudy day in the capital and we were locked in a fascinating conversation with a phone-shy Sicilian. Like a true Mediterranean artist with Mediterranean-artistic temperaments, Arturo Di Modica had no hesitations about telling us how much he dislikes speaking on the phone. We apologised profusely for the less-than-ideal arrangement of the interview, were forgiven, and then he opened up. So we asked him what it is that he’s doing in Abu Dhabi.
‘This is my third time in the UAE,’ said Arturo, explaining that he was visiting for Art Dubai. ‘I’ve been here a week. I will be back here in four months because I’m trying to put together the deal for the horses and the Emirates Bull.’
Before we shed light on said bull and horses, riddle us this: what’s the connection between Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart, and the ‘Charging Bull’ on Wall Street? We’ll tell you. It’s Cipriani.
Harry’s Bar, launched by Giuseppe Cipriani in Venice in 1931 was at the time a popular haunt for the arty-literati celebrity types like Hemingway and Bogart. Furthermore, Hemingway is known to have written his ‘Across the River and into the Trees’ at the Locanda Cipriani retreat on the Island of Torcello. As such, the Cipriani name and brand has come to be associated over the years with discerning clientele and a classy, club like character which gives it such charm. And the bull? The bull comes in because of Arturo Di Modica’s close relationship with the Ciprianis.
The artist who is famous for having installed a 3,200kg bronze bull in front of the New York Stock Exchange in 1989 without permission, has been close friends with the Cipriani family for over 25 years. In fact, he pulled another one of his sneaky installations right here in Abu Dhabi when he sent over a smaller replica of the Charging Bull to Cipriani Yas Island.
‘The bull I put there because I wanted to surprise Giuseppe,’ he said, referring to Giuseppe Cipriani (his grandfather’s namesake) with warm familiarity. ‘I didn’t tell him until I did it. I put it in the container and sent it from New York to Abu Dhabi. So it’s been there for show and I don’t know, maybe one day it’s gonna be sold.’
The Cipriani’s are collectors of Arturo’s artwork, and even gotten the artist to design two of their outlets – Cipriani Dolci at Grand Central Terminal and Cipriani Downtown, both in New York.
‘That’s my hobby,’ says Arturo, but then goes on to tell us that his delicate health in recent years has prevented him from carrying on with such design work, and so he’s focussing now on his sculptures only.
Currently he’s working on two projects. The first will be a set of 28ft wild stallions weighing seven tonnes each which is something Arturo has been working on for three years now. The second is another (full size) bull which he is currently referring to as the ‘Emirates Bull’, because this is where he wants to install it.
‘The eyes will be the same,’ says Arturo, comparing it to the bulls in New York and Shanghai, ‘but the movement of the bull will be different completely.’ Arturo’s representative describes the bull as being a brother of the first two, which is intended to complete what Arturo refers to as ‘the triangle for peace in the world,’ with each corner represented by one bull in Asia, America and the Middle East.
The installation of the first of these three brothers at Wall Street back in the day cost Arturo a pretty sum of his own money. We asked him what his motivation was for doing it. ‘I want to do something to give strength and energy to young people for the future,’ he said, explaining its significance to the 1987 stock market crash ‘for a better America. So I decide to do the bull because the bull means prosperity, and the stock market goes up’.
And what about his work now? What does the artist want his sculptures to mean to people today? ‘Energy, love and prosperity to everybody,’ is the answer. ‘And Peace. That’s the message I want to give to people. Peace and love.’
The Cipriani bull is standing outside Cipriani Yas Island for everyone to see and appreciate first hand.
