eL Seed reveals new 'Love' sculpture that appeared at Italy's Duomo of Milan for one day only

The calligraphic sculpture had been part of his show Templates of Love, exploring Arabic terms of endearment

eL Seed's sculpture 'Template of Love' (2020), which reads 'hob' – or 'love' – in Arabic, in front of the Duomo in May 2021. Photo: Kina Wauters

For one day last month, a new sculpture by eL Seed appeared in front of Italy's landmark Duomo of Milan. The colour of the late afternoon sky on a cloudless day, the artwork read "hob", which is Arabic for "love".

By the end of the day, it was gone.

“That’s the essence of my work – that it’s ephemeral,” says the Tunisian-French artist, who works in Dubai. “It’s there for one week, one day, one hour. And after that a souvenir stays in your mind.”

The work was part of eL Seed's show Templates of Love, which closed in April, at the city's Galleria Patricia Armocida, but he shared it for the first time with the public on social media last week.

See more of eL Seed's work from around the world here:

Vidigal Favella, Brazil: the street calligrapher didn't know he was painting on the rooftop of an art school in Brazil's Vidigal Favella, he revealed on Instagram. 'Few days after I left Brazil, I received notifications from a post by Vik Muniz saying 'This morning, the roof of the school was painted with this huge tag by an unidentified artist, and I must say, it's quite beautiful [...] Thanks, awesome tagger.' Out of all the houses in the favela, I had to paint on the school of the renowned Brazilian artist.' Instagram / eL Seed

London, UK: part of the British Library's exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark exhibition, this work by eL Seed was on show, beneath the four founders of The British Library. The show ran until August 27, 2019. Instagram / eL Seed

Ajman, UAE: ‘Les Yeux Dan Les Bleus’, on the Al Bustan Building in Ajman, is based on a poem by Sheikh Zayed, the Founding Father. Speaking of completing the 2017 work, eL Seed says: 'I painted it during Ramadan, so it was super-difficult. I tried before iftar, after iftar, early in the morning before suhoor … but then I just decided to pause, and start again after Ramadan.' Courtesy eL Seed

Cairo: Egypt: perhaps eL Seed's most famous work, 'Perception', in Cairo's Manshiyat Nasr district, is a piece painted across about 50 buildings. The words are from Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, a third-century Coptic Bishop. 'Anyone who wants to see the sunlight, clearly needs to wipe his eyes first.' Courtesy eL Seed

Dubai, UAE: located in Dubai's Opera District is bold-pink sculpture 'Declaration'. Of his work, eL Seed says: 'Two years in the making, one month of installation and a lifetime declaration of love to calligraphy.' Instagram / eL Seed

Gabes, Tunisia: in 2012, eL Seed painted the Quranic verse, 'O mankind, indeed, We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes so that you may know one another', across the 57-metre minaret of the Jara Mosque in downtown Gabes. Courtesy eL Seed

Demilitarised zone between North and South Korea: 'The Bridge’ is a laser-cut aluminium representation of a poem by Kim Sowol. 'Giving importance to other people’s work is for me, a sense of duty,' eL Seed says. Courtesy eL Seed

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: the painting of this water tower in Riyadh was initiated by the Saudi Ministry of Culture. It features words by one of the greatest Bedouin poets, Abdallah ad-Dindan. Instagram / eL Seed

Cambridge, UK: 'The words of Veronica Forrest-Thomson' by eL Seed in Cambridge. Forrest-Thomson was a poet and a critical theorist, raised in Glasgow, Scotland and educated at the University of Cambridge. Instagram / eL Seed

Algiers, Algeria: eL Seed shared this piece located in Algiers, Algeria in March 2019. The piece is based on lyrics from the song 'Bilad Al Khayr' by Algerian singer, Dahman El Harrachi. Instagram / eL Seed

Shajrah, UAE: eL Seed completed his first public UAE project on an abandoned building on Sharjah's Bank Street in 2015. The mural was created as part of the Jedariya (Arabic for "walls") initiative, launched by Maraya Art Centre. Sarah Dea / The National

The exhibition explored the fact that the Arabic language has 50 ways of saying "love", which eL Seed painted on canvas in his abstracted, open approach to calligraphy. The blue sculpture, made in fibreglass and depicting the Arabic letters for "h" and "b" in a winding teardrop shape, was the centrepiece of the room.

The project investigating these different terms of affection had originally been much larger, with a public and international component.

The conversation between the Duomo's Gothic architecture features and the modern calligraphy worked really well

"Love is such a universal thing and we wanted to see how it could be expressed in different cultures, like in Senegal, Japan, Panama and Italy," eL Seed recalls. "But because of Covid restrictions, we couldn't do it."

The sculpture, also called Template of Love, was sold to a private collector, but eL Seed and his team arranged for it to be installed in front of the majestic Duomo for one last outing.

“The cathedral took six centuries to build – it’s really a labour of love. This was a tribute to that,” he explains. “And the conversation between the Duomo’s Gothic architecture features and the modern calligraphy worked really well.”

Though the work was visible at the cathedral on May 21, eL Seed only posted a picture of it there on Instagram last Wednesday, allowing fans outside Italy to enjoy his new work.

The delayed unveiling of the sculpture online has meant it's garnered an unexpected resonance. The image now has almost 15,000 likes on the platform, and eL Seed says many people have asked how they can see it in real life.

His post coincides with the start of the UEFA European Football Championship, and so a number of people have also asked the artist if the sculpture's cerulean blue colour was an homage to Inter Milan.

“I thought, too much football,” he says, jokingly. “I don’t want to always put meaning behind it. People can interpret it in their own way – I always find that interesting. But I’m sure if people support AC Milan they would be mad. I have to make a red and black one [the colours of AC Milan] now, too.”