"But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the dominant characteristic."

Certainly Otani has nurtured the cult of personality over his long career and like Wilde, has not shyed away from controversy. A walking tableau vivant, his long hair, long nose and retro three-piece suits lend him the Wilde air, his erotic doodles recall Beardsley. However Otani is not remotely Anglo Saxon and perhaps we should look toward Gabriele d'Annunzio and Coco Chanel as role models. He is above all, an exhibitionist.  He shows up at his openings in a bespoke pink wool suit and his latest works are retouched photographs of himself posing with naked adolescent boys. The post-Revolution French would have called  him 'un incroyable'.
The artist's favourite model, his muse, is himself. He reinvents his own image over and over again, although unlike Wilde's Lord Henry character, he is not cursed with eternal youth (Otani is approaching sixty) and despite heavy retouching, it is going to be hard for him to play the exquisite in future works. In his latest incarnation Otani plays the decadent sahib in a series of hand coloured photographs. Flagrantly homeo-erotic, the garish palette and treatment of the photographs deliberately evokes the 'naughty postcards' of the early 1900's with overtones of the cheap sickly colours used in modern Indian prints of Hindu deities. In other words, this is serious high kamp.
In 'Martire gladiolo' (Martyr of the Gladioli) Otani crouches naked as a boy flagellates him with stems of gladioli, in Barbud Androgino, after Ribera, the artist with painted fingernails and a long wig, nurses a small boy painted blue who suckles from Otani's breast.
The melodramas enacted in these photographs recall the stageiness of most late Victorian pornography, particularly Bergers Virgiliens where Ontani, wearing only a string of grapes, strikes a classic pose with one possessive white hand wrapped around the waist of a purple-tinted boy, the tip of his penis retouched in vermilion to match his lips. 
Astuni (Pietrasanta) showed a series of these photographs at the Bologna ArteFiera and it was interesting to observe how many people were openly offended. 

The one thing Ontani has achieved is a signature style that makes him highly collectable in Italy. He is rated among the top ten Italian artists and can show with anyone he chooses, including Sperone Westwater of New York. His latest exhibition is hosted by  Poggiali and Forconi of Florence. Poggiali's son Alessandro has produced a beautiful limited edition catalogue to accompany the exhibition entitled "Throwing the Seed-Pearls of Italy to the Guinea Pigs" which is on till the end of March 2001. 
 

Ontani's world is populated with fauns, nymphs, cupids, harlequins, figures in medieval garb recalling Dante and mythical exotic creatures of the artist's own invention. A throng of lascivious revellers drawn from both eastern and western folklore. Works like BaccAnAle AleatoriAle (above) are informed by a knowledge of Bali and the arts and crafts of Indonesia.
 

Whether you like Otani or not, he is here to stay. Horribly popular, he was even voted 'Artist of the Year' in Italy (whatever that means). And watch out United States! March, April and May 2001 the New York gallery PS1 is staging a restrospective of Otani's work curated by Carolyn Christov Bagargiev.