CANTINA SANTOLERI
Curated by Massimiliano Scuderi,
Cantina and Santoleri Palace,
Guardiagrele (CH), 2011
THE SHOW
The 2011 exhibition ‘in memory of Nicola Santoleri’, curated by Massimo Scuderi, is the reprise of Alfredo Pirri’s intervention at Casa Santoleri and in its cellar in the summer of 2002.
Artist Alfredo Pirri and winemaker Nicola Santoleri met in occasion of the Abruzzese Biennale dedicated to the relationship between art and nature, during which Pirri chose to install his work in Santoleri’s cellar in Guardiagrele.
Art and wine: because ‘the thing which interested me the most, in nature, was wine. I wasn’t interested in interacting with what we normally intend by “nature”: trees, rivers… I wanted to work on how nature is manipulated by men, on how it becomes something extremely sophisticated. This is how I met Nicola Santoleri, after having visited other cellars.’ (Alfredo Pirri interviewed by Massimo Scuderi, in Alfredo Pirri at the Casa Santoleri, 2011 edition).
THE ARTWORKS
It is a site specific work which gracefully enters a story both personal and public. And right above the cellar, the Casa Santoleri: an ancient building, completely abandoned. ‘To me the house presented itself immediately as the scene of a tragedy, because it was a house which had been fled without time to pack anything up, the way people flee during conflict, when there’s an enemy at the door… Or at least, that’s how I saw it. An abandoned place which had remained intact for a long time, as if its inhabitants had escaped – even the beds were made, the table was set. It was extraordinary because all of this made it emptier but at the same time full of signs, as if the people who had left were to return from one moment to another.’
for Alfredo Pirri’s text click here
for the text of Daniela Lancioni and Daniela Bigi click here
(these texts are published in the volume Alfredo Pirri a casa Santoleri 2002/2011)
PHOTOS: MASSIMILIAO CAMPLONE
