Translation after Destruction: Reassembling Arte Povera's Material Ethics in Michelangelo Pistoletto's Venus of the Rags

Rooted in the post-World War II cultural landscape of Italy, Arte Povera emerged as an ethical resistance to neocapitalist ideology, reaffirming the enduring bond between art, life, and collective memory through humble, tactile materials. Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Venus of the Rags (1967) crystallizes this movement’s central paradox: the coexistence of endurance and decay. The installation juxtaposes a concrete cast of a classical Roman Venus with a vibrant heap of discarded industrial garments, confronting viewers with the clash between timeless beauty and modern waste. This article examines the artwork and its destruction by fire in Naples (2023) as a critical test of how aesthetic and civic networks reorganize after profound loss. Employing a qualitative, interpretive, single-case research design, the study investigates the post-crisis reconfiguration of the artistic network at Piazza del Municipio. Data were gathered through documentary and contextual analysis of publicly available sources—including artist interviews, international news reports, official statements, and visual documentation—ensuring analytical validity through the triangulation of visual, discursive, and institutional evidence. The central problem addressed is how human and nonhuman actants—artists, citizens, municipal officials, and ruined materials—reconfigured their relationships following the disruption. Utilizing Actor-Network Theory, specifically Michel Callon’s translation model, the research interprets this socio-material reassembly through the four moments of problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilization. Findings reveal that the fire did not terminate the artwork’s social presence but rewrote its material script, exposing translation as a continuous collective negotiation. The charred remnants functioned as active nonhuman mediators, mobilizing public mourning and civic reconstruction while distributing agency among matter and people. Ultimately, the study concludes that Venus of the Rags demonstrates the endurance of Arte Povera’s core ethical principle: transformation through fragility, in which destruction functions not as an endpoint but as a generative act that binds art, society, and material memory.