Dubai Expo features Michelangelos David, but not in all his glory

The Dubai Expo
2020 is one of the biggest events of the calendar this year and as such has a
line-up that is becoming of the event. Therefore, the exhibition rightly hosts
Michelangelo’s David in its midst. However, the masterpiece sculpture that is
regarded by many as a symbol of civil liberties has ended up, rather
ironically, in controversy over self-censorship.  

In the sculpture
exhibited at Italy’s pavilion of the Dubai Expo, the head and neck of the six-meter-tall
depiction of the Renaissance statue are showcased in an octagonal structure at
the first-floor level. The genitalia and feet, however, have been placed at a
lower level and accessible to select visitors.

It was sections of
the Italian media that first raised the point about the placing of the David sculpture
as an act of self-censorship to hide the statue’s genitalia due to religious
and cultural sensitivities in the Gulf Arab state.

However, the
organisers of the Italian pavilion have strongly denied the claim. “We planned
to position David’s statue the way it is now many, many months ago,
commissioner Paolo Gilsenti told Reuters adding that the statue had been
brought to the spot in the middle of Ramadan in the presence of several senior
officials of the Emirati and Italian government.

According to artistic
director Davide Rampello, the David statue has been so placed to offer a “new
experience” by allowing visitors to see the David at the eye level, whereas “art
lovers have to look up at the original statue at the Galleria dell’Accademia museum
in Florence.

Although not
everyone is complaining. A French national visiting the Expo told Reuters that
she likes it this way. “It’s good like this because we can imagine the rest. We
don’t know what we can see further down,” she said, adding: “He’s a beautiful,
beautiful man.”