Seems "The Finger" is a more appropriate gesture (warning) for Investors, who are subjected to all kinds of  Fraud, Deceit, Double Dealing, etc

Known for fashion and design, Milan has been branching out-with some interesting contemporary artwork. WSJ's Christina Passariello reports from Italy.

MILAN?Wall Street's charging-bull statue is the very epitome of financial strength. Outside the stock exchange in Italy's financial capital is an equally unambiguous symbol: a giant marble middle finger.

The 36-foot white sculpture is a hand without fingers except that vulgar one, pointing away from Milan's stock market. It was made by Italy's most famous contemporary artist, Maurizio Cattelan, who donated it to the city last year on the condition that it grace Piazza Affari, or Business Square, where the bourse has its headquarters.

Milan's mayor agreed to it. Now, however, the statue is raising hackles among the city's business and financial establishment. Consob, Italy's stock-exchange regulator, threatened to move its annual meeting, usually held in the stock exchange, elsewhere, lest the fickle finger offend the organization's members. Assogestioni, an Italian asset-managers group, recently moved its conference to a business school.

Stock market Chief Executive Raffaele Jerusalmi says the view from his third-floor office onto Piazza Affari was ruined last year when the statue arrived. In March, he moved to an adjacent wing. "I don't suffer from the finger anymore," he says.

The city's politicians, however, are sticking to their guns, even making the statue part of their electoral platforms ahead of this weekend's local elections.

For conservative Mayor Letizia Moratti, the finger is raising Milan's cultural profile, a goal that is part of her electoral platform. "Milan must be a capital for contemporary art," says city councilman for culture Massimiliano Finazzer Flory, who commissioned the finger and works with Ms. Moratti. The mayor declined to comment.

The city's center-left candidate, Giuliano Pisapia, who is running against Ms. Moratti, also supports the statue as "a free expression of artistic creativity?that shouldn't be censored," he said through a spokeswoman. "It's an open criticism of the international financial management that led to the great crisis of 2008."

It isn't the only obscene gesture among expressive Italians?it has less shock value for Italians than some gestures?and it isn't the first time the European art scene has ruffled feathers. Last month, Catholic protesters destroyed a photograph by artist Andres Serrano of a small crucifix immersed in the artist's urine on exhibition in Avignon, France. Bulgaria has been represented by a toilet, and Germany by a network of highways in the shape of a swastika. Mr. Cattelan has titled the finger sculpture "L.O.V.E.," an acronym for love, hate, vendetta, eternity in Italian. The Milanese refer to it simply as "il dito," or "the finger."

"Some people have a sense of irony, and some do not," Mr. Cattelan said in an interview.

Among those who enjoy a good chuckle, Mr. Cattelan says, are his patrons, who are some of European capitalism's biggest figures. Luxury-goods magnate Bernard Arnault paid $2.1 million for a stuffed horse suspended from the ceiling, which he keeps in his Parisian mansion. The Guggenheim Museum is planning a retrospective of Mr. Cattelan's works in November, including a smaller version of the finger.

Early last year, Mr. Finazzer Flory, the city official, approached Mr. Cattelan about staging an exhibition of his work in Milan, part of the mayor's program to spotlight contemporary art. But there was one major condition: The city councilman wanted a sculpture displayed outside to complement the museum show.

Mr. Cattelan had an idea: He would create a statue that would play on?but transform?Italy's Fascist hand salute from the 1930s. By cutting off the fingers and mutilating the hand, he says he was criticizing the totalitarianism that ravaged Europe in the last century.

Mr. Finazzer Flory considered putting the statue in an exhibition space near Milan's cathedral, the Duomo, smack in the center of town, or in a large park. Then he thought of Piazza Affari, a very central square usually cluttered with illegally parked cars, and its grandest building, the 1932 Palazzo Mezzanotte, the stock exchange headquarters, which is a hallmark of Fascist architecture.

"When he proposed Piazza Affari, the whole project just made sense," says Mr. Cattelan. The city council approved the finger's placement in Piazza Affari for a month starting last September, coinciding with the museum exhibition.

Milan's business community was immediately up in arms. When they saw a draft picture of the statue, Mr. Jerusalmi consulted with the chairmen of Consob and Telecom Italia, who all opposed the digit being erected in front of their offices. Mr. Jerusalmi wrote a letter to Ms. Moratti expressing his opinion. The mayor and Mr. Finazzer Flory met with Mr. Jerusalmi to explain the project, but did not alter their plans.

The finger encountered further opposition in January from within Ms. Moratti's inner circle. Mr. Finazzer Flory wanted to extend the hand's stay to a year from its initial month-long run. Yet five of the 15 city councilmen boycotted the vote.

"Between the bourse and Cattelan, I choose the bourse," one of the dissenters, city councilman for urban development Carlo Masseroli said at the time. "It's undeniable that Cattelan's work ridicules the bourse, otherwise the insistence on the location wouldn't make sense." Mr. Masseroli declined to comment, but his spokesman confirmed his opposition to the statue.

The measure squeaked through and the finger is now in place until September. It has public support: an online petition that has been circulating across the country has so far gathered 1,800 signatures to keep the sculpture put. If Ms. Moratti is re-elected, Mr. Finazzer Flory said he will suggest it remain in Piazza Affari until 2013, when it could move to a new contemporary art museum.

On a recent spring day, office workers took their lunch break on the finger's pedestal. Anna Garegnani, a consultant whose office is on the opposite side of the piazza from the bourse, is a fan of the finger. "It makes Piazza Affari look like a De Chirico painting," she said, referring to the surrealist artist, citing a particular attraction for the hand's "beautiful" veins.

In fact, the middle finger is directed at Ms. Garegnani's side of the square; the palm of the hand faces the stock exchange. "It's actually more the stock exchange giving the middle finger to the world," quips Mr. Cattelan. 

?Sabrina Cohen contributed to this article. 
Write to Christina Passariello at christina.passariello@wsj.com 

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