About the Artwork
In Italian, the term Universal Judgment is used for the Last Judgment. In an irreverent twist on man as God’s servant, the artist replaced the traditional seat of Judgment with an all-seeing valet, or clothes hanger, in the center at the top. The damned are falling on God’s left, in the red of eternal fire, and the saved are rising through the blue on his right. The kaleidoscope of figures that make up each scene are quoted from sources such as newspaper photographs of riots and the dream—or nightmare—worlds in the art of Bosch and Bruegel. Pozzi’s vision of a world in chaos combines these visual references with personal symbolism and vestiges of his earlier abstract style.
Universal Valet
1983
Lucio Pozzi
born 1935
American
Unknown
Oil on linen
Unframed: 190 inches × 21 feet 10 inches (4 m 82.6 cm × 6 m 65.5 cm) Overall (stretcher bars): 161 3/4 inches × 20 feet (4 m 10.8 cm × 6 m 9.6 cm)
Paintings
Contemporary Art after 1950
Founders Society Purchase, Catherine Kresge Dewey Acquisition Fund
1993.1
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Markings
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Provenance
the artist
1993-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Reconnecting. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1987, pp. 26-27 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Lucio Pozzi, Universal Valet, 1983, oil on linen. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Catherine Kresge Dewey Acquisition Fund, 1993.1.
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