By Vera Ernst.

We’ d like to invite all the goody two-shoes and the so called moralists not to read this catalogue and to even
forget this review. We say this to provoke a pre-emptive strike because at least in this way we get everything
out in the open clear as crystal. ?e frst reason for this warning is because in this catalogue we fully claim the
right to play, to seek pleasure, to live out our sexual and human penchants without any kind of censorship. In
the works of Saturno, these extreme situations are demonstrated. “But what is the extreme? ?e extreme could
be a look, a kiss or a thought shared with those we love. ?e extreme is the desire to test our own limits and
to live up to our full potential. ?is is not a torture catalog, but rather a wonderful work of stylish techniques,
images that make one think of various topics and not only BDSM situations, but works that go beyond the
boundaries of creativity and imagination. However for those who judge these works solely on the suggestive
erotic allure, they are welcome to do so. For those who do not fnd them to their liking and instead would
preach morality, immorality or even lack of morality, then my suggestion is to go back to the frst page and
then close this catalog altogether. Or better yet, look at this catalog from a different point of view which could
be iconographic, symbolical or even mythological. When I met Arianna, a young art dealer, she was
immediately clear about what her opinion of this review was. She would have preferred a more psychological
and sexual review of the catalog because stylistically, ( and I don’t think she’s wrong ) there isn’ t anything to be
discussed. She believes that new art, underground – art as coined by her, fnds its purpose in being among the
works of Saturno, where one should not be restrained solely by the aesthetics, but rather a deeper meaning
must be explored. Equally important, the psyche of the represented characters must also be penetrated. ?e
archetypes of the myths, the reasonings of the artist/director whose scenes where eros, thanatos, myth, heathen
and Christianity must all be brought to the light and must also all blend together in surprising harmony.
However, as an art historian, I have no tools of judgement so fne, and thus the idea was hatched of a work
using four hands. My hands and those of the sexologist, Jurgen Steine. I would frst make a refection of a
religious nature. it is true that in the work of our artist we can fnd clear references to Christian iconography
and martyrologies, and someone could judge blasphemous way of representing saints, martyrs and virgins, but
it ‘s interesting to know that we have some examples of saints who, during mystical delirium, seem to have
confessed in their writings to try some form of pleasure. It is known that the most effective way to get himself
appointed as a saint or as a blessed is always be tortured to death. For example, the Carmelite nun Maria
Maddalena dei Pazzi spoke, during the fogging, about an inner fame that swept away and that erotic
dimension is clear from her statements, such as: “God please do not ignite anymore this fre that is consuming
me. ?is is not the kind of death I want be cause I get too much pleasure.” Features are also some expressions
of San Girolamo, in his own more rigorous forms of asceticism he felt the burning desire of his soul. Physical
pain is often used, in fact, as an adjunct ecstatic especially in certain extreme forms of asceticism. From here
you can evaluate the works of Buttò noting common points existing between mystical and erotic ecstasy. ?ese
correspondences have often been highlighted by psychologists and psychiatrists, but always with the main
purpose to break down some forms of religious experience. Ecstasy shows an impure nature and probably in
some cases the sexual element is the fundamental, one mysticism, at times, can only provide to emphasize a
deviated form of expression. Sometimes, however, the opposite is true. In several primitive populations the
techniques to achieve ecstasy are often exactly like those of some erotic rites, such as those belonging to
current-Tantric and Dionysian initiation, because eros has the power to bring the individual away from
himself. I reckon that some extreme expressions of corporal mortifcation, involving the use of tools such as
whips, fnd their reason to exist in the Freudian Todestrieb, that is, an impulse to death, to destruction. ?e
annihilation of the body is used to establish a contact with God. it seems that the life instinct of the characters
of Saturno fghts against a tendency of the organic matter to return to the inorganic state it derives. From we
see their sexual instinct opposed to the deathly instinct. Christian education emphasizing the expiation of guilt
of any kind, repressing carnality and the cult of the martyrdom, has led countless people to the way of BDSM.
Several books have been written about the responsibility of the Church in the origin of sexual disorders,
because sex from Christianity and after became a taboo and the repressed instincts have in some way also
repressed the personalities of the individuals, forming large part of cognitive dissonance, which is the source of
many problems, and I would dare to say, why not, that the repression of the individual may have brought to
relevant social consequences. Even today in some cultures it leads to the collective delirium especially in Islam,
for example, it is said that after death those who are meritorious will be able to access to the Paradise of Allah,
where they will have the availability’ of 60 virgins. At least until the Sexual Revolution, we mean 70s of the
XXth, was much easier to defne some erotic experiences by identifng them with crimes and serious mental
illness. In particular, about a century before Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing considered serious “the disease” of
masturbation in young girls, so much to cauterize the clitoris with a hot iron. In his book Psychopathia
Sexualis, a fundamental text in the history of sexology, the author places on the same level practices so different
such as exhibitionism and murder. ?e sexual activities, which didn’t have a mere purpose of procreation,
were considered at that time symptoms of mental disorders and not only should they been cured but also
punished. Isn’t this paraphilia the punishment for excellence? ?e free eros, like its extreme practices are
certainly not inventions of 1800 and even less literary invention of the Marquis De Sade or Leopold von
Sacher Masoch, also because the earliest traces of those literary forms of eroticism date back even to the
philosopher Aristotle, but the works of De Sade and Sacher-Masoch are certainly the most known, especially
due to the fact that Sigmund Freud thought to combine the last names of authors in the defnition of sado-
masochism. ?is procedure, especially in view of the situations described in their works, created many
misunderstandings on the topic, infecting the collective imagination that even after the years of the Sexual
Revolution continued to identify these practices with crimes and serious illness. Yet like into Greek and the
Roman culture (and I am abstaining from making reference to other cultures), some sexual practices were
performed during the rites of initiation, feasts and religious ceremonies, homosexuality was not synonym of
diversity and only one of many myths needs to be recalled, the one of the Minotaur, birth by the coupling of
Pasiphae, queen of Crete, and a bull, to claim that zoophilia was not considered a mental deviation. Pasiphae
in 2012 would be haunted by the Protection of Animals. In the light of what I described I retain as very
interesting the iconographic syntheses made by Saturn. In fact, in particular the sexual repression, and
repression of human nature in general, are movements being made with the coming of Christianity and
intensifed during the dark medieval ages , even the latest generations are being emancipated by the infuence of
the Church into daily, the whole Italian culture is very attached to the Catholic one, which can be felt also in
the sexual sphere. ?e role that religion plays moral judgment should not be underestimated by public opinion
about Eros and consequently about any expressive and evocative means of that. So I suppose the “morality” of
some of them would bring them to scandalous judging or offensive consideration concerning the paintings of
our artist. And here, we really can not give up to a brief psycho-analysis refection of these “some”: perhaps
their “disgust” is the logical consequence of the shame they feel by discovering that they also have, like
everyone else, repressed desires that emerge from their subconscious. ?e contraddiction between Bdsm, myths
and Christian iconography, of Sarurno’ s works remind of 2500 years of art history, mythology and literature
bringing out the material for a psycho-sexological investigation. Saturno’s works in some scenes identify
dominants and subissed and willing for a moment reading the key not in an erotic way, I dare to say that the
artist reads every kind of social interaction in terms of dom and sub. Saturn reinterprets human sexuality
through the human symbologies giving a new role and a new dignity’ to what many consider vulgar and
perverse. ?e majesty of the works is so great that also just looking at some photographs I had difficulty to
sustain the eyes of the fgures, as if each of them know exactly what to do and how to transmit it, they seem
real, they cause reactions, emotions, anxiety. ?ey are provocative, and to succeed in the provocation confrms
the greatness of the works, because they claim their domination towards the society proving to be an example
of superiority to the common rules. ?e women of Buttò are a refection of a fundamental feminine
archetype: Demetra. She, is the maternal feminine archetype considered as the source of the sacred, we could
almost speak of motherly initiator. Her roots are found in the prehistoric era during which the cult of the
Great Mother was celebrated. ?is fgure boosts in the myth in historical time as the Virgin Mother and the
divine Mediatrix. ?is archetype can be identifed with the work “Ctonia” for example, where Saturno seems
to be willing to transmit through the use of fgures recalling the Mother, that the man, loving women, secretly
always wants the Virgin even when he believes to content himself with carnal pleasure. ?e terrestrial weak
woman, is just a surrogate and the completion of existence that she seems to be promising and is illusory.
Boehme says in this regard that the man confuses the Virgin with the matrix Veneris who attracts him with a
false desire. ?e man aspires to reintegrate the divine image and he sees into Mary the Christian the one that
brings him to the rebirth of the soul. As described it has probably led to the dualism of a puritan ascetism:
those who want to get Maria must renounce to Eve, the woman on earth. ?at’s because, among other reasons
previously analyzed, in Christianity the concrete initiatic use of sex is excluded, maybe you will reach a
justifcation idealising it in the marriage. In this context, in fact, sex is not only a reproductive tool but also
the medium through which the man and the woman try to reintegrate the original divine image, the
androgynous image. ?e Platonic doctrine of the androgyne, derives from the Mysteries, of whom Demetra
was the goddess. ?is doctrine continues to be professed by currents like the Hermeticism, the Kabbalah, the
New Age culture (in which Wicca is the incarnation of the Great Mother), and even in some Christian
mystics. In these currents frequently recurring theme of spiritual reintegration of the fallen man through the
feminine principle in its various forms, and one of the most ‘ancient is Sophia, wisdom. In Jungian
psychology the prehistoric Great Mother (one of his personifcations is indeed Demetra) is one of the bright
power of the unconscious, an archetype of great and ambivalent power, destroyer and savior, nurse and
devourer and I think that is not a case that Saturno in some works recall this fgure.?e artist dwells on scenes
from ancient rituals, ecstatic rites. Some works contain elements also awarded to the Sabba. Between the
fgures we can recognize the presence of a horned divinity which seems to be Cernunnos. It ‘s interesting to
note that this fgure and all fgures carrying horns in the Greek and Roman mythology, is a male, Saturno
turns the fgure into a female character. He attributes horns to the female, giving us a vision of a gynocratic
world. ?rough the centuries the mystery ceremonies were condemned by Christianity, because of repression
and demonization of the sexual and ecstatic rites of those ,associated in medieval times to the black masses.
Saturno, through his work, turns it in to a positive vision. ?e ceremonial preparations that we see in his
work is the scene where we are preparing to the life. ?e message he wants to communicate, is that the power
of sex is on the root of the living individual, repressing it in its most visible manifestations lead to internal
dissent, crippling, to dissipation of energy, of which Christian mysticism offers enough examples; repressing it
only feeds phenomena neurotic existence, on which modern psychoanalysis has put too much importance.
Saturno overturns the common point of view releasing the individual from useless superstructure and bonds,
letting him be, what he is. ?is is the real purpose of the fgures: to be. Simply being, healing the man usually
inhibited or frustrated by the nature of the social environment and special circumstances of its existence, the
purpose of the works of Buttò is the transcendence of the human condition, to an effective regeneration, a
shift of ontological status. No coincidence that he uses images that remind us of classic times. In the Mysteries
celebrated in it, those of Eleusis, the sacred marriage, in addition to the generic value for the hierogamy
symbolic and rituals, alluded to the mystery of rebirth in a context that, originally, included sexuality as a
medium, here was the feminine principle being also emphasized, the divine woman, Demetra, goddess of
those mysteries. ?e meaning of the ceremony, seems to be remembering, beyond the hierogamies , the
mystery of the resurrection that can be made through the sexuality and the woman. Saturno does not allude to
sex as libido or as the Lustprinzip but as a force with a potential metaphysics value. He invites us to
understand the deeper meaning of Eros. ?e fgures displayed by Buttò are fxed in attitudes, gestures and poses
which are embodiments and expressions of his thought. To the particular poses of their bodies and their limbs
is attributed not only a symbolic value, a meaning, but also the objectifcation of that. He confers on its works
the power to evoke and create precise images in the mind of the viewer, to cause very perceptible visions,
because the sex brings, even in the dark trauma of an instant, openings over the conditions imposed by the
existence. And this is the real foundation of the importance it has into human life, because no pulse, but love,
can match his energy, being Eros the inner impulse which leads us to desire totality, that’ s the unifying power
for excellence, Reichian Orgon. In Buttò this energy is felt with particular force and a combination of symbols
that allow a different and more subtle reading to the meaning is often fanked and overlapped. ?e book
investigates this issue, introducing to the public a selected group of excellent works for technique and style,
showing episodes full of a strong yet demonstrative nasty component. His works are seductive in deepest
etymological sense of the term. To ‘seduce’ comes from the latin verb ‘seducere’, which also contains the
meaning of “get closer to themselves,” and this is one of the reactions caused be admiring the works, because
you could not remain indifferent. ?ey are works which, by quoting of Arianna’ s words, bring you into the
subconscious and leave you there where the superstructures fall and the feeling is authentic because it’ s there
that the real self lays. ?e catalogue documents about the changes of reading iconographic themes and their
changing meaning in the contemporary world. In his boards converge at least 2200 years of artistic expression
from the Satyrs and Nymphs of the second century. B.C. to the erotic frescoes of Pompeii as one of Villa of
the Mysteries, to typical frescoes of Christian iconography, to sculptures by Bernini and Canova, to the
Renaissance paintings of Rembrandt, Fragonard and Boucher, to the voluptuous fgures of Renoir, to the work
of Avril, to origin of the World of Coubert, to the designs by Utamaro (why not?) and those of Picasso, Klimt
and Schiele, until the photo-documentary of Alfred Kinsey, the father of sexology. Saturno has developed a
sophisticated way of representing the nude and the sex, in his own way, whereby transmits states of mind and
passion. In his work the appropriation of senses and erotic tension is accomplished, as well as a very subtle
iconographic and artistic syncretism, which opens up countless artistic and cultural point for thoughts.
Emblem of the exhibition and of the catalog, is, with no doubt, Ctonia. ?e term refers to all of those
chthonic female divinities related to the cults of the underground and personifcation of volcanic or seismic
forces. Ctonie (??????, or Sotterra, ??????? greek adjective meaning underground). In one of his works
Saturno paints her with a snake on her shoulders. ?is animal is the symbol/goddess of the afterlife because he
represents the creature crawling in close contact with the earth. In Crete there was the cult of the Snake’s
Goddess, this was identifed by Evans, who noted some points in common with the Egyptian goddess Wadjyt.
?e symbol and the spirit of the Minoan Snake’s Goddess assumed different characteristics in Greek
mythology. ?e serpent represented the chthonic power connected to the earth goddess, and it also was the
attribute of Asclepius, probably derived from his knowledge of rebirth’s grass and of eternal youth that would
lead to the resurrection. ?e snake represents the power and wisdom, locked and contained into the erect male
phallus, able to convey the voices of demons that are the ancestral memories and removed ones. Also Demeter
was a chthonic divinity, but the chthonic divinity for excellence was Hades, Lord of the Underworld. He is
Hades for the Greeks, Dite for the Latins. In the history of religions, the term also refers to other gods,
mythical and legendary fgures, which are always connected to the ground, of religious civilizations different
from the Greek one. Saturno also refers to another known divinity: Dionysus. ?is divinity is also a chthonian
one. He, in fact, is always a subterranean god, an entity associated with chthonian Gea and the chthonian
Zeus, and in the Orphean Hellenized a pathos is predominant related to that religions of redemption, to
which some practices, even sexual, are linked. Even in this case, as in Cernunnos, we can not fail to notice
that Buttò confers to some female fgures typical elements of Dionysian iconography, like the vine shoot, for
example. ?is could be due to the fact that despite being a male God, his nature is deeply feminine. Some
want him to be a mythographic son of Zeus and Demetra, and this version of the myth would follow the line
of study pursued so far in this review. Dionysus is another recognizable character into Satuno’ s works
archetypal fgures. ?e archetype of Dionysus has strong potentialities, positive and negative ones, because it
evokes the most sublime and trivial feelings, creating conficts inside and outside of the fgure that embodies it.
?e archetype may be present in the mystics and those who live moments of ecstatic experience and intensely
contradictory impulses. It’ s an archetype likely to have a psychological connection with the “Great Mother”, a
link that can also be of a spiritual origin. I would fnally make an astrological refection whose inspiration
derives from the artist’ s frst name: Saturno. For some schools of thought the astrological archetype of
Dionysus is a Saturnian nature. Saturno under the astrological profle is represented as the limit of life. It ’s the
line between physical and metaphysical. ?is archetype stimulates in us the need to invalidate the boundaries
of the body, consciousness or social system where we live. It’ s also important noting that even astronomically
together with the planets Uranus and Pluto, it is not visible to the naked eye. ?is planet called “Guardian of
the ?reshold” on the mythological, astrological, psychological, philosophical, and astronomical meaning,
because it leads us to experiences that have no place into linear time of conscience, representing the border of
visible experience. ?is archetype recognizes a sense of alienation towards what is considered common. On the
mythological level Saturn, in the theogony of Hesiod, is shown as the son of Uranus (the Heaven) and Gea
(the Earth) and you may think that he makes the union, not separation as some claim between what is linked
to the experience on the earth , and what is linked to the experience after death. Saturn, fnally, was the father
of the already much discussed character in this catalogue: Goddess Demetra.

THE PLACE
?e place where it will be held the exhibition is a place full of meaning and deeply in line with the art of
Buttò. ?e Core Gallery was founded in a room of the 1600 next to the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore. ?is
last stands just where in Roman times a temple to Castor and Pollux had been raised, and it seems that the
room corresponds to the ancient Roman Temple room’s of the Treasury. What makes the meeting between
Core Gallery and Saturno “destined” is without doubt the fact that the gallery is located at the Subterranean
Naples. I can not fail to highlight how the term underground ???????, so often used, could be found in
Buttò, in the place of the exhibition, in the new underground-art coined by Arianna, in the name of her
gallery, which is Core (which stands for Contemporary Room exhibit) that means “heart” in Naples, nucleus in
English ,which is everything that is the core of things, and which represents the most important part.
Saturnicore is an exhibition that invites to refection on the possibilities we do not see, it opens our eyes on
an invisible world, the underworld, awakens the unconscious, gives an input to the drives that the
contemporary society has taught us to tame, it again resurfaces the archetypes present in the personality in each
of us. When the subconscious mind is enlightened and becomes shiny we are no longer slaves to the numbing
forces. ?e underworld is not at all a world of darkness, but a spirit world, and our material body has a
memory that surpasses the intellect because it recognizes its belonging to the earth.