“I once peed on the statue of David,” says the older man riding in my car. And the weirdest thing is, I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth.
I’ve been driving around with this man for several days now. An artist (painter, photographer, sculptor, etc, etc), he’s also a personal friend of the director, who has asked him to help advise on the overall look of the film I’m scouting for. I’ve been tasked with driving him to visit all the location selects so he can suggest innovative ways to storyboard them.
We’ve had an interesting few days together. After hours of awkward silence initially, we finally found common ground over a shared love of punk music when my phone accidentally started blasting it out of my car’s speakers, and he insisted I play it louder. We further bonded over the fact that I had lived in Italy years ago during college, near where he had gone to art school in the 1960s.
He’s since shared a lot about his life, and it’s become clear that this small, quiet man in my car is actually quite fearless, and has put himself in some incredibly dangerous situations over the years to achieve his art.
I’m reminiscing about my travels through Florence, and I mention I had some trouble when my brother, also an artist, came out to stay with me for a few weeks. For some reason, he was determined to touch every famous sculpture we came across, no matter how many velvet ropes and watchful guards and angry older brothers were there to try and stop him. And so he did, at museum after museum, gallery after gallery. In fact, he even got us kicked out of Michelangelo’s Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici for touching Night.
“That’s just part of being an artist,” the man in my car says. “It’s important to go through a period when you need to prove you’re above those that came before you. Like a Greek god killing his father.”
“And if you think briefly touching a sculpture that’s been around for hundreds of years is a crime,” he continues, “consider what I did. I once peed on the statue of David.”
Long pause as I wait for the follow-up where he tells me the punchline to what must be a joke. It doesn’t come.
“Are you…serious?” I ask slowly, totally unsure if he’s putting me on or not.
“Oh, very serious,” he says. “It was back in the 60s. Like your brother, I had something to prove over the artists who came before me. So I decided that, as my final project for art school, I was going to pee on the statue of David.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“I treated it like I would any other art project. I was going to do it. It was just a question of when and how.
“So I came up with a ritual that I would repeat each day. I made a bag lunch in the morning. I arrived at the Accademia upon opening, with a small folding chair. And I would sit and stare at the statue all day. I would eat lunch there. I would go to the bathroom there. And I would only leave at the end of the day when the museum closed.
“I did this day after day, week after week. And I studied every facet of the daily operation of the museum.
“I knew the individual guards. I knew their routines. I knew their personalities. When they would take their lunch breaks. When they took bathroom breaks. When they snuck away for a cigarette.
“I knew the maintenance workers. When they’d come to clean, and for how long. There was one in particular who used a wooden ladder, and often left it against the wall. This was key, as the statue is on a base seven feet off the ground.
“I knew the museum staff. When they’d come to work on exhibitions, and when they tended to be off in their offices.
“And I knew the habits of the visitors. When it was mostly tourists, when it was mostly students. When the crowds grew large, and when they were nonexistent.
“I studied this week after week, month after month, until I finally pinpointed exactly the day and time I would have a window where no one was in the gallery.
“And so the day came. I made my lunch. Arrived with my chair. I set up in my usual location. And I stared at David, waiting for the moment to arrive.
“And then it came, and it was like watching a perfectly made clock operate. The last guest stepped out of the room. The guard saw his moment to escape to the bathroom. The ladder was leaning against a wall. I was alone with the statue. And I knew I only had under two minutes.
“I quickly got the ladder and leaned it against the statue. I climbed up to the base. I undid my pants. It was the perfect moment. And then – I couldn’t go.
“I was in a panic. I had worked so hard and so long, and here I was in the moment, and I couldn’t do it.
“’No,’ I told myself. ‘You can do this.’ I relaxed. I focused. And then – the stream came. And I peed all over David.”
“Then what happened?” I ask.
“I quickly pulled up my pants and returned the ladder, just as the guard returned. And I left.”
“Did anyone ever find out?”
“I don’t know. I never went back.”
“Huh,” I say, absolutely perplexed as to how to digest this story. “Well, this many decades later, are you glad you did it?”
A small smile raises in the corner of his lips. “Of course!” he says quietly, as if I’ve just asked the most foolish question in the world.