Until December 31st, within Castello Maniace in Siracusa, 800 sqm of walkable mirrors create a perfect synthesis between history and contemporary art
Curated by Helga Marsala, the latest installation by Alfredo Pirri, ‘Passi? (Steps), covers the entire surface of the Sala Ipostila of Castello Maniace in Siracusa. The temporary flooring is entirely made of fractured walkable mirrors reflecting the castle cross vaults and sober Norman architecture. The result is a fascinating transformation of a thousand-year-old monument thanks to the conceptual strength and visionary power of contemporary art. The installation finds a way to redesign the environment, creating a perfect synthesis between architecture and nature, between history and contemporary art. Moreover, this is the largest edition of the work realized so far in a closed space, second only to the open-air one designed for the Forum of Caesar.
The temporary flooring is entirely made of fractured walkable mirrors reflecting the castle cross vaults and sober Norman architecture
Visitors walking on the surface – which can be walked on safely thanks to the type of material used – become the protagonists of a collective performance by shattering the mirrors. On the shattered floor “float”, as evidence emerged from the abyss, some finds from the “Paolo Orsi” Archaeological Museum in Syracuse. These enter a dialogue with the very light-colored spheres made by the artist. They are heavy stone “bullets” of ancient catapults, here they have become mysterious, metaphysical objects, with a strong symbolic and formal value.
‘Passi’ is the title of a series of installations started in 2003 by Alfredo Pirri – one of the major exponents of Italian contemporary art, active since the 1980s. The first successful one took place inside the Certosa di San Lorenzo in Padula (Salerno) and was curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. Since then, the project has been hosted in several historical sites, in Italy and abroad, integrating into its name that of the space that hosted it. Among them sacred buildings, cultural spaces such as the Yugoslav Film Archive in Belgrade and museums such as Museo Novecento (Florence). But also archaeological sites such as the Forum of Caesar (Rome) and industrial sites such as the former anti-atomic bunker in Konjic, Bosnia.
Ilona Catani Scarlett