The VI edition of Arte all'Arte, curated by Jerome Sans and Pier Luigi Tazzi, renewed the dialogue between contemporary art and a territory rich in history and tradition, which has made the Tuscan landscape an almost mythical place. The invited artists brought to life original projects designed to interact with the peculiarities and essence of each host city: one work, one context, one unique connection.
Marina Abramović brought her expressive power to Volterra, while Cai Guo-Qiang transformed Colle di Val d’Elsa with his museum under the arches of the San Francesco bridge. Jannis Kounellis created a suggestive dialogue in Montalcino, Surasi Kusolwong animated Casole d’Elsa with her participatory approach, and Pascale Marthine Tayou reinterpreted the heart of San Gimignano. Finally, Nari Ward united art and community in Poggibonsi.
This edition also featured special projects of great significance: Loris Cecchini created a permanent work for the Casa della Musica/Sonar in Colle di Val d’Elsa, while Gianni Motti made Arte all’Arte News. Finally, the Castello di Linari was the stage for works by Daniel Buren, Ottonella Mocellin, and José Antonio Hernández-Diez.
An edition that skillfully intertwined the present with the roots of the territory, transforming Tuscany into a large laboratory of contemporary art.
Curated by Jerome Sans and Pier Luigi Tazzi.
"Ephemeral and eternal: only art can reconcile these extremes. Only art can consume itself in a few hours and challenge the centuries, build spaces and destroy them, insert itself into a landscape or annul it, reject it, oppose it, offering a sublime challenge that repeats itself in ever-changing forms over time.
Not by chance, the Arte all'Arte project of the Associazione Arte Continua maintains, even in this 6th edition, the thematic sequence of Art-Architecture-Landscape that has characterized it since its inception (1996), with the conviction that the dialogue between different environmental situations, between the ancient and the contemporary, allows for the recovery of the spirit of the places and enhances the essence of the works presented.
It results in an engaging project that aims to capture a diverse and broad audience, rewarding the more discerning and sophisticated connoisseurs, while educating and bringing closer to art, and thus to beauty, those who have not had the chance or opportunity to be involved in similar experiences but are ready to embrace them and consider them integral parts of their territory and landscape.
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At the intersection of the paths of Art, Architecture, and Landscape lies the work and commitment of the Arte Continua association, which, for the sixth consecutive year, organizes Arte all'Arte, a project of great cultural value whose aim is to enhance the Tuscan territory by reintegrating attention to aesthetics and art, particularly contemporary art, in the design of its spaces. The goal is to recover the long tradition that has shaped our land, turning it into a work of art itself, and to find a new point of balance between city and countryside, between the global and the local.
The artists who have been invited this year to live and "breathe" the cities of Volterra, Colle di Val d'Elsa, Montalcino, Casole d'Elsa, San Gimignano, and Poggibonsi, and to create works conceived exclusively to be hosted in these locations, are among the best that contemporary art has to offer on an international level, and their works will once again provide emotions and inspirations to those who wish to experience them.
Never before in this sixth edition have the diverse cultural backgrounds of the artists been called upon to confront and interact with each other, intensifying the contrast between the Tuscan territory, the cradle of Renaissance and Western art, and the disruptive openness of the present time. Ours is a region very attentive to the most dynamic expressions of contemporary art, and it has always had at its core the deep sense of exchange and cultural contamination; Arte all'Arte manages to combine originality and novelty with tradition, drawing new energy and inspiration for artistic productions from the testimonies of past cultures.
The historical, artistic, and cultural heritage is, after all, the greatest wealth of our region: a capital to protect and enhance, especially where the large flows of tourism fail to reach and enjoy it. Our goal is to make Tuscany a vast "museum" spread across networks of monumental centers and activities that dialogue and interact with each other. A Tuscany that knows how to look at and enhance its wonderful past, but also a Tuscany that confidently looks to the future, precisely because it is aware of the value and extent of its historical and artistic cultural heritage. Initiatives like those of Arte Continua can therefore only be appreciated, as they represent a concrete step in the right direction.
Claudio Martini, President of the Tuscany Region
