For three months in 2002 twelve enormous bronze statues by the renowned Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj ( 1944-2014) graced the streets of Lugano. How happy we are that a local bank purchased one of them as a gift to the city and it continues to bring playful joy to residents and tourists alike! This sculpture is so big and tactile that it just beckons you to approach it and explore it. Even from the inside!

This huge sculpture invites you to draw close and examine it. I took some tourists to check it out a few weeks ago!

I think that I managed to get inside Eros's head! Maybe only this way will I understand why he is covered in bandages!

Tourists will be tourists and kids will be kids. My tourist friends had Lots of fun!

Eros Bendato

This somewhat eerie bandaged and severed head is called Eros Bendato which translates as Eros Bound. The sculpture depicts a fragment of an ancient monument to Eros, the Greek god of love and desire. There are different ideas as to the meaning behind the bandages that surround the statues eyes and mouth. Some explain that love is blind while others feel that desires and ideas have been imprisoned.