Bettino Craxi, the Extra-Terrestrials, Original Photolithograph, 1990s

Gli Extra-Terrestri is an original photolithograph realized by the Italian politician Bettino Craxi. Hand-signed in pencil on the lower right. A precious specimen, numbered on the lower left, edition of 117/120 prints. Titled on the lower left. Very good condition, except for slight cutting and folding along the right margin. With his camera, Bettino Craxi, stained by the public accusation of corruption, observed his new country of exile, Tunisia, declaring: " I am locally in contact with sporting, cultural and social associations, and kindly informed about their activities. I have contacts with a publishing house and a print shop in Tunis who edited three lithographic series that I produced, two in the brothers' centenary Lumière, and one later ". In this desperate situation, he realized this and more wonderful photolithographs, saying: " In these condition, while on the one hand I thank God for being still alive, on the other I continue to live as I can, defending my freedom and my life, since I think one equals another, according to an equation that in my mind it is well rooted and very lucid." Indeed, in August of 1993, in front of a speechless Parliament, he made the historic speech that sounded like a challenge to the whole Italian political class: " Stand if you have never taken illicit financing in this country ". Then he remembers the money paid by the Soviets to the PCI and the paramilitary apparatus of the KGB in Italy. However, overwhelmed by the judicial scandals and pursued by the arrest warrants of the Mani Pulite pool in Milan, Craxi decided not to go to court and in 1994 he fled to his villa in Hammamet, Tunisia, where heads of state and politicians from all over the world once loved being hosted. For six years, Italy has pretended to forget him: a few politicians visited him, only a few friends stayed by his side.