Among ConiglioViola’s operations the Pirate Attack to the Art Biennale in Venice is probably the most spectacular and emblematic too.

On June 7h, 2007 (day of the opening of the 52nd edition of the Biennale) an enormous Pirate Rabbit, almost 6 metres high, winged like the Lion of San Marco, with one eye covered with a classic pirate’s eye patch, crossed the whole Canale della Giudecca on board a large raft, as far as the Giardini (the official venue of the Biennale) and from there – at around 6pm – it fired 52 cannon shots at the buildings of the Biennale.
Then two rabbit-like pirates disembarked from the ship into terra firma to raise the Jolly Roger, with the logo of a large “Vitruvian Rabbit” over the gardens, the place traditionally used to host the flags of all the nations.

This action, that somebody read as neo-futurist, was intended by ConiglioViola as an act of conquest and reappropriation – although an ironical and provocative one – in relation to an Art System that is often revealed to be “blind” and with one eye “blindfolded”.
The fact that a Winged Rabbit – an animal symbolising “cowardice” – is leading the pirate attack is no coincidence, considering that the Winged Lion – which should in fact represent courage – seems to have ceased to inspire heroic choices and actions!

[…] IX. From the other side of the sea

Brice: That was the birth of the Coniglio. Then it got a name: I asked a girl during an exhibition what to call it and she suggested Gesù (Jesus). Prophetic! In fact in 2007 when I wanted to make some noise at the Venice Biennale I decided that I would make it “walk” on the water, complete with wings, with an eyepatch to turn it into a pirate, mocking the Lion of St. Mark’s and that… Martina: Why, because the Lion of St. Mark’s was a pirate? Brice: It was a parody – it had wings. From the allegorical point of view, the rabbit and the lion are diametrically opposed, one is courage and the other is fear, right? So now I’m going to make a rabbit more aggressive than this lion. The lion in this case became a symbol for the art system and… Martina: Were you already tired of it or did you still want to upturn stereotypes? Brice: I wanted a rabbit that would be more ferocious than the lion. Which seemed tired, blindfolded, bent over. So it was a spectacular, amusing gesture, which was also autobiographical, because that’s the way I felt, coming to art from the other side of the sea, who knows which one. You’re in the sea, you don’t know where you set off from… but you’ve got there and I wanted to arrive in that way: with a joyful but critical project, explosive and sensational, destructive and sensational: that’s what ConiglioViola is, that’s how I see it. The attack was directed to art – it was a warning: look, art has to look outside itself, not just to itself. It’s terrible when art only looks to itself, it’s a narcissistic mechanism… and you know what happened to Narcissus.[…]

from“Interview with Mr. Rabbit ” by Martina Corgnati
In “Sono un pirata / Sono un signore” ed. Silvana 2009

The series of eleven photographs of the Pirate Attack to Venice Biennale were exposed the first time in 2009 during ConiglioViola’s solo show Sono un pirata/Sono un signore at PAC Pavillion of Contemporary Art in Milan.

PAC: installation view