Milan, July 27, 1993. It is 11.34 pm when a car-bomb explodes on Via Palestro in front of the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea. The attack carried out by elements of organised crime, has the sense of an attack against the city which, with the initiative Mani Pulite (Clean Hands), became a symbol of the struggle against corruption. Five people died and a wall was destroyed. In the days to follow, Maurizio Cattelan gathered the remains of the wall of the PAC and transformed them into a work of art. The rubble was gathered in sacks and placed on crude pallets, like a sculpture on a pedestal. Lullaby, sarcastic reference which symbolises the sleep of reason and hope, heads to London and Paris before being displayed in Milan. In the dance hall of the GAM, a brief walk from the location of the explosion, the work of Cattelan dialogues with the monumental painting Quarto Stato, offering, in one look, the trajectory of the 1900s. While the masterpiece of Pellizza da Volpedo opens the century with an image of trust in the future, Lullaby evokes the sense of tragedy and the end of illusion at the dawn of an era. The conversion of the rubble into art and the exhibition of the work right on Via Palestro represents a message of resistance and payback on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of the attack.
