Uomo Nuovo

Uomo Nuovo is Raffaele Piano’s project deconstructing the Fascist ideal of the New Man, defined by strength, virility and emotional detachment. Through queer bodies, Piano reimagines the male body as a site of softness, vulnerability and resistance.

Uomo Nuovo is an ongoing project by Raffaele Piano that explores and deconstructs the fascist concept of the Uomo Nuovo (“New Man”). This idealized figure is defined by strength, virility, muscularity and emotional detachment, deliberately distanced from anything associated with femininity or vulnerability.

During Italy’s Fascist era, this ideal took physical form in art and public spaces such as the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico / Stadio dei Marmi in Rome). The complex is encircled by thirty-six Carrara marble statues, donated by cities and regions across the country, each glorifying this vision of masculinity. Drawing directly from the aesthetics of classical sculpture and Roman gladiators, these figures promoted the male body as a political and ideological instrument.

Raffaele’s work challenges this constructed and exclusionary ideal by juxtaposing it with queer and non-conforming bodies, bodies that resist, expand, and subvert the narrow definitions of manhood imposed by the regime. Beginning with his own body, shaped by lived experiences of fatphobia and homophobia, Piano collaborates with other gay men  and trans men to create a visual counter-narrative.

The project unfolds primarily through collage, combining archival imagery with original photography. Raffaele incorporates elements such as the Foro’s statues, historical images, scanned photographs printed on recycled paper and fabrics, layering them with digital fragments, screenshots from dating apps, and portraits of queer bodies. The resulting compositions are simultaneously intimate and political.

Through this visual language, Uomo nuovo reclaims the male body as a site of softness, vulnerability and resistance.