Honorary Citizenship to Mimmo Paladino

Saturday 7 June

11 a.m. film screening The Divine Comet by Mimmo Paladino - Garibaldi Cinema

intervene:

Mayor and Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Poggibonsi

Mimmo Paladino, artist

Mario Cristiani, president of the Arte Continua Association

Mario Lorini, President ANEC

4 p.m. ceremony for the conferment of honorary citizenship by the municipal administration - Sala Quadri

5 p.m. walk with the artist to the Fairy Fountain and conversation with the critic and curator James Putnam

 

7 p.m. screening of documentaries From Source to Square (directed by Massimiliano Pacifico) and Le heaume enchanté - Mimmo Paladino (directed by Pappi Corsicato) - Garibaldi Cinema

7.30 p.m. film screening Quijote by Mimmo Paladino - Garibaldi Cinema

to follow projection of the video on the didactic project carried out by the Ottovolante association on the opera The Sleepers at the Fairy Fountain and commissioned by Associazione Arte Continua

and finally buffet courtesy of Angiolo and Elena Barni's Myo Restaurant

Sunday 8 June

 

10 a.m. Appointment at the art education space in Piazza Rosselli

 

11 a.m. Walk from Piazza Rosselli to the Fountain of Fairies

 

11.30 a.m. Intervention on the Pataphysics of Massimo Schuster and intervention by Mimmo Paladino

1 p.m. picnic in the park courtesy of Angiolo and Elena Barni's Myo Restaurant

Poggibonsi, 21 May 2025 - Associazione Arte Continua, as part of the project Le Città del Futuro, in collaboration with Fondazione E.L.S.A and with the patronage of the Municipality of Poggibonsi, presents, 7 and 8 June 2025, two days of art on the occasion of the awarding of the honorary citizenship to Mimmo Paladino.

 

25 years after the donation of the permanent work Sleepers created by Mimmo Paladino for the project Art to Art - art architecture landscape at the Fonte delle Fate in Poggibonsi, at the request of Associazione Arte Continua, the Poggibonsi Council and City Council unanimously decided to accept the request to confer honorary citizenship on the Campania-born maestroin recognition of his extraordinary artistic and cultural contribution to the city. The work Sleepers was created by the artist in 1998 on the occasion of the third Art to Art promoted by Associazione Arte Continua and is accompanied by a specially composed soundtrack by Brian Eno. With his donation to the municipality in 2000, the artist contributed to making the city a point of reference for contemporary art.

In memory of that moment and as a tribute to the relationship that binds Paladino to the Tuscan city, the Sala Quadri of the Poggibonsi City Hall will also be exhibiting until 1 November 2025 four unpublished canvasesTropic', 'Pompeii is Home - The Wonderful Mandarin', 'Rain', 'Ahab'. Inside the Cassero della Fortezza di Poggio Imperiale will be visible the same sculpture which was installed in 1998Untitled', an iron casting measuring 223×110 cm.

Paladino returned again to Poggibonsi in 2023 on the occasion of his exhibition at UMoCA - Under Museum of Contemporary Art, with the premiere screening of his film The Divine Comet at the Garibaldi Cinema.

With the weekend of 7 and 8 June, Associazione Arte Continua, through the project Le Città del Futurowants to strongly emphasise its missioninvolving the population in public art projects accessible free of charge to all and strengthening the link between the artist and the community through the enhancement of cultural heritage.

Le Città del Futuro was created as a pathway by which the association seeks to rethinking the city through the eyes and works of international artists such as Antony Gormley, Loris Cecchini, Per Barclay, Giovanni Ozzola, Carsten Holler, Leandro Erlich and many others, the forests and countryside within the cities. Indeed, the aim is to pave the way, through the collaboration of artists, architects, entrepreneurs and even public administrations, towards a more sustainable city of the future.

The day of Saturday 7 June opens with the screening at the Cinema Garibaldi in Poggibonsi at 11 a.m. of the film The Divine Comet (2022) latest film by Mimmo Paladino. The screening will be held in the presence of the municipal administration, of Mimmo Paladino, artist, of Mario Cristiani, president of the Associazione Arte Continua, and Mario Lorini, President ANEC (National Association of Cinema Exhibitors).

To follow, at 4 p.m., the ceremony conferring honorary citizenship at the Sala Quadri of the Municipality of Poggibonsi that will continue, at 5 p.m., with a walk from Piazza Cavour to the Fountain of Fairies, opera house Sleepers by Mimmo Paladino, accompanied by the artist at conversation with critic and curator James Putnam. A unique moment to retrace the bond between the artist and the city through the narration of his works. The day will end at 7 p.m. with the projection of documentaries From Source to Square (directed by Massimiliano Pacifico) and Le heaume enchanté - Mimmo Paladino (directed by Pappi Corsicato) at the Garibaldi Cinema and the 19.30 with the screening of the film Quijote directed by Mimmo Paladino, a surreal reinterpretation of Cervantes' famous novel. A dreamlike journey into the madness and fantastic transfiguration of the contemporary world presented at the sixty-third edition of the Venice Biennale International Film Festival. Finally, it will be screened the video on the art didactics project realised by the Ottovolante association on the work I sleepers at the Fonte delle Fate and commissioned by Associazione Arte Continua.

The day ended with a buffet courtesy of Angiolo and Elena Barni's Myo Restaurant.

We would like to thank Mario Lorini, President ANEC - Associazione Nazionale Esercenti Cinema, for kindly hosting the screenings at the Garibaldi cinema free of charge and for providing the space for the buffet.

 

Celebrations continue Sunday 8 June 2025 with the appointment at 10 a.m. in the new space opened by the Associazione Arte Continua in collaboration with the associations Culture Attive, Ottovolante and LaGorà, in Piazza Rosselli at the corner of Via Pertini, dedicated to art education projects, where it will be possible to see the works realised by the associations in the towns of Colle di Val d'Elsa, Poggibonsi and San Gimignano. At 10.45 from the square will start a route of art didactics curated by Donatella Bagnoli. To follow, the dialogue between Mimmo Paladino and Massimo Schuster, Master Logographer of the Order of the Great Spire, on Pataphysics going towards the Fairy Spring in the presence of the municipal administration.

 

The walk will also provide the occasion to remember Sandra Loglihistorical director of the Elsa Foundation who runs the Politeama in Poggibonsi and who has done so much for the institution to become a place of contaminations of arts, genres and live performances.

The event ends with an intervention by Mimmo Paladino and with a picnic of typical productskindly offered by Angiolo and Elena Barni's Myo Restaurant in the park adjacent to the Fairy Fountain.

Biographies and insights:

Mimmo Paladino  (Paduli, Benevento, 1948) is one of the protagonists of the Italian and international contemporary art scene and one of the leading exponents of the Transavanguardia movement. His research, which spans painting, sculpture and installation, is characterised by strong symbolism and a constant dialogue with historical memory and Mediterranean culture. He has exhibited in prestigious museums and international venues, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Royal Academy in London and the National Museum of Capodimonte. In 1998 he participated in the Art to Artrealising the work The Sleepers inside the Fonte delle Fate in Poggibonsi: an evocative installation donated by the artist to the city, which can still be visited today. With the Associazione Arte Continua he also developed A square for Leonardo in Vinci, in homage to Leonardo da Vinci, and contributed to the Arte per la riforestazionedonating a work that made the creation of the Neophyte Parkin Prato. In 2023, he had a solo exhibition at the UMoCA in Colle di Val d'Elsa, curated by the Chinese artist and curator Cai Guo-Qiang.

 

Associazione Arte Continua Since 1990 it has been committed to regularly offering public art initiatives involving artists from the international art community, not only concentrated in large cities but spread throughout the territory, with the aim of promoting the municipalities of the provinces of Siena and Florence as an agri-environmental art district. Associazione Arte Continua is a non-profit organisation that, thanks to the help of donations and sponsorships from private individuals and companies, and small public contributions, succeeds in realising public art activities, triggering processes of local development and creating at various levels connections of a social dimension from site-specific works to other fundamental aspects of the world of culture. The Association's driving force is the attempt to create, always in collaboration with local communities and institutions, a point of balance between city and countryside and to produce new links between art, architecture and landscape, restoring to art a central role in the construction of cities and the territory, while respecting individual specificities. Associazione Arte Continua is engaged in the realisation of various projects that involve contemporary art as an engine for improving the social and environmental conditions of communities in different territories.

E.L.S.A CultureCommunities Foundation is a cultural body founded and wholly owned by the municipality of Poggibonsi that manages and promotes artistic and cultural activities in the Alta Val d'Elsa area. The Foundation is responsible for the management of the Politeama Theatre in Poggibonsi, an important cultural centre that hosts around one hundred live performances each year including theatre, concerts, and dance, as well as film screenings in two theatres and other artistic events. In addition, the Foundation coordinates Accabì Music Farm, the Public Music School of the Municipality of Poggibonsi, offering music training courses for different age groups and skill levels. Fondazione Elsa and Teatro Politeama, is the only entity in all of Central Italy to receive, for the category 'Multidisciplinary', the contribution of the prestigious National Fund for Live Performing Arts (FNSV) of the Ministry of Culture (MIC), thanks to its project Discipline(s). It is a 'transversal playbill' that aims to enhance the languages of prose, music and dance, offering an annual programme of at least eighty performances at the Politeama Theatre. The Fondo Nazionale per lo Spettacolo dal Vivo, managed by the Direzione Generale Spettacolo of the Ministry of Culture, supports projects that promote the performing arts in Italy with artists and companies of national and international importance.

Pataphysics. Pataphysics is the 'science of imaginary solutions', conceived by the French writer Alfred Jarry in the late 19th century. It is an ironic and paradoxical discipline that stands as an extension (or parody) of metaphysics, exploring what lies 'beyond the imaginable', often through play, absurdity and the inversion of traditional logics. It is a form of poetic-philosophical thought that has influenced the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the theatre of the absurd and even part of pop culture. It was 'institutionalised' in the Institut de Pataphysique founded in Paris in 1948. Mimmo Paladino has often been associated with this current conceptual and visual affinities, so much so that even the work Sleepers at the Fairy Fountain was published in the official journal of the Parisian institute. Poggibonsi has an almost 20-year connection with Pataphysics since 2006 when, as part of the Phoenix festival, it became the capital of the movement with the play 'Alfred Jarry is Dead: Long Live Alfred Jarry', which saw the following performers at the Teatro Politeama: Jean Baudrillard; a national premiere of a play freely inspired by Alfred Jarry's work entitled Waiting Long by and with Claudio Morganti; then Edoardo Sanguineti, Thieri Foulc and Fernando Arrabal, who presented the European premiere of the bicycle-book by Spanish publisher Juan Carlos Varela. It was a real bicycle transformed into a book to ride and read with unpublished texts by Sanguineti, Arrabal and others. The pataphysical bicycle remained at the theatre and on Sunday will be exhibited at the Fairy Fountain where we will have the pleasure of attending the talk on Pataphysics by Massimo Schusteractor, director and puppeteer, founder of the company Théâtre de l'Arc-en-Terre.