''ME AND HITLER''
Year: 2019
In this work, Maestro Raffaele Ciotola performs an artistic gesture of radical ethical opposition. Through a dichotomic composition, the artist superimposes his own face onto that of a figure emblematic of hatred, performing a visual laceration that is, at the same time, an act of resistance.
While on one hand the historical figure recalls the darkness of the past, on the other hand, Maestro Ciotola positions himself as a bulwark of Stop Homoph Art, the movement he founded to elevate art as an instrument of struggle against all forms of discrimination. The insertion of the rainbow symbol and the pink triangle becomes, in the pictorial sign, a declaration of redemption: the artist's identity erupts into the portrait to reclaim dignity and memory, transforming the canvas into a powerful warning against intolerance. This work is not just a portrait, but a programmatic manifestation of how contemporary art can and must take on social responsibility, fighting homophobia through the inescapable force of its own presence.