Joe Biden is no longer “running his campaign from his basement,” a taunt frequently yielded by his political opponents. Instead, he materialized in the pastoral fields of Northern Italy.
Well, not quite so. Physically, Biden is still in the US, but a huge portrait of the Democratic presidential candidate has been carved into a 6.5-acre wheat field in Castagnaro near Verona with a slogan that reads, “Jump & Fly, Biden 2020.”
This unexpected tribute to Biden is the work of Italian land artist Dario Gambarin, who used a tractor, plow, and rotary harrow to carve the colossal portrait in a performance piece — titled “Jump and Fly” (2020) — which lasted 10 hours.
But why? We asked. In a statement to Hyperallergic, Gambarin said that he was inspired by Biden’s words: “My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn’t how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.”
“Biden’s statement touched me personally because his words echo what my father used to say when I was younger,” Gambarin explained. “And they have inspired me to dedicate to the Democratic candidate in the upcoming US presidential elections an exceptionally large land-art portrait.”
Gambarin has in the past created land-art portraits of other world leaders like Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela, and Hillary Clinton.
“The spirit flies and we with you,” he cheered the presidential hopeful. “’Fly Biden Fly’ to the White House!”
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