Coal, 72 x 98 x 119 cm, 2022.

An invitation to descend towards the deepest matter, one’s inner self and in this catabasis, the dramatic irruption of the supernatural into the world as well as the encounter with the mythical Cerberus infernalis triceps, the three-headed dog guarding Hades.

Dante in the Divine Comedy puts it in custody of the third circle in Canto VI of Hell, where it is an instrument of punishment and torture of damned souls. A unique but “triune” monster, with its three heads and three throats with which it swallows spirits, exactly like Lucifer, configuring itself in some way as yet another anti-trinity. It is interesting how, in outlining the «cruel and different» beast, Dante continually alternates between human and bestial features. And precisely of domestic animal, of guard dog rather than demonic being, is the nature of this work but made of infernal matter: coal.

Coal, a fossil material and remnant of remote eras, becomes the body and symbol of a Cerberus guarding the thresholds between destruction and rebirth. Its ambivalent presence questions the idea of hell as a space outside ourselves, instead sug-gesting that ecological shadow – the material and moral residues of the Anthropocene – is a habitat we belong to. The sculpture thus opens a reflection on the complicity between the human and the irreversible, revealing the dark beauty of what remains.

Installation view and details at The Address, 2025 (Brescia).
Ph: Alberto Favara