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Event

“One group of several castles per year is going to become hostel and Indian reservation for contemporary artists, selected within a multimedia, multicultural, transnational perspective. As a consequence, a sort of cultural nomadism is created, that leads the art protagonists to travel to and reside in the Apulian land. Apulia thus becomes the theatre of a cultural event, in which contemporary art paradoxically plans its own past, while keeping in touch with the history of the places. Of those very places. A Grand tour for everyone”. (Achille Bonito Oliva)

After Castel del Monte, the Daunian castles of Lucera, Monte Sant’Angelo and Manfredonia, and the Salento castles of Acaya, Lecce and Muro Leccese, the fourth edition of the Grand tour comes to the Land of Bari: a first stage in the Swabian Castle of Bari with The Third Paradise, a group work by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gianna Nannini, and now in Barletta.

In the Norman/Swabian – Angevin/Aragonese Castle, the group exhibition “On the ground, underground” is a journey from the surface to the bowels of the fortress, but also a metaphor of the charming wandering throughout the most different geographical and physical places in the world, among various cultures and forms of expression.

Site specific projects, inspired by local identity and architecture, convey the idea of “other” dimensions – from macro to micro, from extremely terrestrial to extraterrestrial worlds or to the afterworld – exploiting the charm of the huge spaces of the fortress, between the gardens and the imposing newly restored basements, which open to contemporary art for the first time, inviting everyone to a surprising journey between history and contemporaneity.

On the ground, we soon meet the sorrowful provocation by Betty Bee, who raises a big golden barbed wire sunflower, while, in the gardens, strange Martian visions, contained in the light boxes by Alessandro Palmigiani, amaze both adults and children. Western culture, embodied by Frederick II’s bust, dialogues with a polychrome Buddha, a product of Shozo Shimamoto’s public actions. Ethereal and debunking is the sound presence-absence of Gino De Dominicis in the parade ground; then, in the room of the old oven, the complex architectural project by DUENUOVI/Two&New (born) brings the world of birds near to the chaotic human system, involving such fields as publishing, science, teaching, economics, history, digital processing and art, while opening to the public with innovative open-air workshops.

From a long flight of stairs, a magnificent view of the castle basements is offered to the visitors: a first part of them is the result of a brand-new restoration, whereas the second part was restored in the past, along with the whole castle.
Just “buzz” and you’re in: it’s a trompe l’oeil, a product of Roberto Schiavi’s divertissement. Discover, then, the monumental sculpture-sheets by El Anatsui, the living lightness of the equivocal space – a window on the coming and going along a Far East contemporary road – created by the father of Chinese video art Zhang Peili, the virtual hyperrealism in the cyberspace by AES+F Group, the music-inspired conceptual work by Tullio De Gennaro and the research on sound by Piero Mottola. A view of the real world is in the photos of urban landscapes by Domingo Milella, a metaphoric world is in the sign, expressed through different forms and mediums, by Annalisa Pintucci. The encompassing circularity of St. Vincent hall invites to interact with the technological nanomandala by Victoria Vesna; nearby, the palpitations of the frail superhero by Adrian Tranquilli, angelic presences in the painting of memory by Luca Pignatelli, the structural and synthetic visions – almost geometrical ectoplasms – by Loris Cecchini, the noir ambient videos by Maria Pizzi, the intercultural dialogue in the installations by Massimo Ruiu and Georges Adèagbo, the sensual relationship with nature and its vital, physical elements in the ambient video-installation by Ernesto Neto.
Finally, Paolo Chiasera condenses the flexible concept of “underground” in a simple brick, produced by the writers’ burning “touch” – performed on a fake wall, built to finish a ruined castle wall, and narrated in a video – in harmony with the graphic elements that form the huge portrait by Zakaria Ramhani

Giusy Caroppo