Artworks seized from the mafia go on display in Milan

Dozens of contemporary works of art confiscated from the Italian mafia have gone on display in Milan, including paintings and sculptures by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.

The "SalvArti (Save Arts): From Confiscations to Public Collections" exhibition opened at Milan's Palazzo Reale this week, featuring more than 80 artworks that authorities in Italy have recovered during crackdowns on organised crime.

"Works destined to remain buried in the networks of organised crime are finally returned to the community, taking on a symbolic role as resistance to crime," Maria Rosaria Lagana, the head of Italy's agency for administering such assets, told local media.

"It’s a rebirth for these works. It is a bit like digging them out of the earth, like archaeologists, and putting them on display where everyone can see them," she said.

The collection ranges from the first half of the 20th century to the start of the 2000s, and includes Warhol's Summer Arts in the Parks and Dali's lithograph of Romeo and Juliet.

The exhibition was previewed in Rome last month and will remain in Milan until late January before it moves to Reggio Calabria, a southern city at the heart of the mafia group 'Ndrangheta's territory.

It will be on display there until April, when the artworks will be distributed to several state museums across the country.

At least 20 of the pieces were reportedly seized from a boss of the 'Ndrangheta mafia in 2016, while the others were confiscated from a global money laundering network that was dismantled in 2013.

The exhibition also features newspaper cuttings and videos of police recovering the artworks, which are used as currency in arms and drug trafficking.

In 2016, Italian police recovered two Vincent Van Gogh paintings, stolen from a museum in Amsterdam in 2002, from a property near Naples belonging to detained mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale. The artworks were estimated to be worth €50 million each.